Babel | 
| Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Actors: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mohamed Akhzam, Peter Wight
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $1.19
You Save: $28.80 (96%)
New (59) Used (190) Collectible (2) from $1.19
Rating:  388 reviews
Sales Rank: 4273
Format: Ntsc, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), English (Published)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 143 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: PARD345984D
UPC: 097363459842
EAN: 0097363459842
ASIN: B000MCH5P4
Theatrical Release Date: November 10, 2006
Release Date: February 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
TRAGEDY STRIKES A MARRIED COUPLE ON VACATION IN THE MOROCCAN DESERT, TOUCHING OFF AN INTERLOCKING STORY INVOLVING SIX DIFFERENT FAMILIES.
Amazon.com
Brilliantly conceived, superbly directed, and beautifully acted, Babel is inarguably one of the best films of 2006. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his co-writer, Guillermo Arriaga (the two also collaborated on Amores Perros and 21 Grams) weave together the disparate strands of their story into a finely hewn fabric by focusing on what appear to be several equally incongruent characters: an American (Brad Pitt) touring Morocco with his wife (Cate Blanchett) become the focus of an international incident also involving a hardscrabble Moroccan farmer (Mustapha Rachidi) struggling to keep his two young sons in line and his family together. A San Diego nanny (Adriana Barraza), her employers absent, makes the disastrous decision to take their kids with her to a wedding in Mexico. And a deaf-mute Japanese teen (the extraordinary Rinko Kikuchi) deals with a relationship with her father (Koji Yakusho) and the world in general that's been upended by the death of her mother. It is perhaps not surprising, or particularly original, that a gun is the device that ties these people together. Yet Babel isn't merely about violence and its tragic consequences. It's about communication, and especially the lack of it--both intercultural, raising issues like terrorism and immigration, and intracultural, as basic as husbands talking to their wives and parents understanding their children. Inarritu's command of his medium, sound and visual alike, is extraordinary; the camera work is by turns kinetic and restrained, the music always well matched to the scenes, the editing deft but not confusing, and the film (which clocks in at a lengthy 143 minutes) is filled with indelible moments. Many of those moments are also pretty stark and grim, and no will claim that all of this leads to a "happy" ending, but there is a sense of reconciliation, perhaps even resolution. "If You Want to be Understood... Listen," goes the tagline. And if you want a movie that will leave you thinking, Babel is it. --Sam Graham Beyond Babel 
Other Interweaving Storylines on DVD | 
Other DVDs by Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu | 
Why We Love Cate Blanchett | Stills from Babel (click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 383 more reviews...
 Man, I cried so much...what is wrong with me? June 5, 2009
Angela Schmidt (Knoxville, TN)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Babel is such a fitting title for this movie that focuses on the theme of universal pain and hope. All the different barriers we face with the clash of cultures were very well demonstrated. Great movie, but it was a little too real and frustrating at times.
I cried at the end, way too much for my own good. I sat there with my tear-stained, mascara-smeared face and was surprised at my outburst of emotions. It was just so powerful and wonderfully moving...or maybe I just get too into movies. Anyway, I highly recommend it.
 A true stinker! May 30, 2009
Maine Train
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Here is Hollywood trying to act like PBS with a pretentious, long-winded story line that is a true waste of a precious evening off! And trust me, PBS woulda turned this turkey down in a heartbeat.
Pitt and Blanchett hereby go on our "downgrade list" of stars after pretty much just showing up on an Algerian set with nothing much meaningful to do except look uncomfortable and confused (and that wasn't acting, we all were).
 Memorable film April 28, 2009
Kona (Emerald City)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Several stories set in places around the world are related only by a freak accident with a rifle: An American couple (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchette) are on a tour bus in the Moroccan desert when the wife is shot by a some poor children who are trying out their new rifle. Back home in San Diego, the couple's housekeeper takes their children across the border into Mexico with near-tragic results, while the rifle is traced to a businessman in Japan.
The separate-but-ultimately-related-stories technique is similar to that used in the movies Crash and Traffic and used just as effectively. Each story is grim and edge-of-your-seat intense; I don't think I took a deep breath during the whole movie. All of the actors are excellent as is the location photography. We see some good, bad, and a lot of ugly in various cultures as families deal with unexpected events.
The title relates to the Tower of Babel, where God confounded the people's language so they couldn't understand each other. Certainly, each story has frustrating moments of poor communication that become matters of life and death. Though the movie is long, the tension never lets up and I was really caught up in the drama. Highly recommended.
We're All Related March 21, 2009
Observer One (Bay Area of N. California)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Babel moved 4 generations of our family equally. Here is a story that combines a Yuppie family, a Mexican caregiver (and her family left behind while she became intimate with her charges in California), impoverished Morroccon herding families and a whole village equally as poor, a well-go-do Japanese businessman whose deaf daughter is desperately trying to hook up to recover from her mother's death and her own isolation and profound lonliness. The people seem real, the settings seem real. There's no beautiful manicured Third World cometics in this movie. Poverty is dirty and ugly. Americans can be entitled and ignorant sometimes. Everyone has emotions. Everyone hurts. Sometimes people can be so generous it's unbelievable, and other times they're shockingly self-absorbed. This is a love story. A parable about how we're all related and how what we do reverberates across the globe with consequences we could never imagine. Utterly believable, utterly gripping, fascinating and inspiring. This is one of the four best movies I've ever seen. Even if Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are far from pretty here.
There is a benefit for those who watched it! March 7, 2009
Roy Bryhn
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
For those of you who made the mistake of watching the movie, the benefit is a sincere appreciation for the great 1-star reviews. The effect of reading these reviews after watching the entire movie, almost made the movie worth watching :)
I am very forgiving when watching movies, because I want some entertainment. I can usually force myself to ignore Hollywood's political and social propaganda, dumb love stories and unrealistic plots, along with the typical immorality that seams to be a pre-requisite in anything out of Hollywood.
That being said, if you take away the joy of reading the 1-star reviews, after watching the movie, then Babel is an utter waste :(
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