Saw Babel last night. It is a powerful film. It is textured and rich. Tragic, but also hopeful. It is a story of innocence and pain. It is about strength and survival. And as you might suspect from the title, it is about communication.
Babel is not the easiest film to watch, and it is probably not for everyone. That said, I expect it to win more than its fair share of awards. Whilst few of the individual performances will win, when you look across the entire film, it is a very impressive work.
One award that it could certainly win (in addition to screenplay, best pic, and direction) would be best soundtrack. Here's a good "official"quote:
Alejandro González Iñárritu's film revolves around the transcultural difficulties of human communication, but the linguistic dysfunction that drives the film's characters towards causal connection and inevitable tragedy has paradoxically inspired just the opposite on this adventurous musical mélange of a soundtrack.
The meditative, often hypnotic fretboard inventions of Iñárritu's previous soundtrack collaborator, Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla (a 2005 Oscar winner for Brokeback Mountain), serve as the restless soul of interlocking plots in the film, the final chapter of a fatalistic trilogy that also includes the Santaolalla-scored Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
And then there is Ryuichi Sakamoto's Bibo no Aozora - Endless Flight - one of my favourite single tracks of all time. The version used for Babel has a much slower tempo and is without vocals. It is a lovely "remix" and is not to be missed. Here's a live version:
Bibo no Aozora was originally released on his 1997 release called Smoochy. If you only want one Ryuichi Sakamoto album, this is the one to have.This live performance is much closer to the original:
There are several other live versions floating around YouTube and other places.
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