This month brings the UK release of Babel, the third and most ambitious part of the trilogy. Where Amores Perros took Mexico City as its subject, Babel takes the world: it was shot in four countries and five languages. It stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as a couple hit by disaster while travelling across Morocco. Interlinking stories focus on two young Moroccan brothers from a Muslim family, a deaf-mute Japanese teenager and a Mexican nanny – all of whom, in their own ways, confront misery and death. Although Iñárritu himself contends that it is “a film about hope” (he said that about 21 Grams, too), by the end you feel you have been privy to a long scream of pain. Humanity is so vulnerable, so misguided, and the world so horribly unfair. It is also possibly the best film you will see all year: searing, ambitious and provocative cinema.
more from the New Statesman here.