Babel

In recent years, there has been a Mexican invasion happening in Hollywood and Babel is the newest movie from the Mexican writer/director team that started this invasion.

Like their previous two films Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Babel follows a non-chronological, non-linear and multi-episode storytelling format. Compared with the other two movies, Babel may be screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s most ambitious project to date. The story goes across four continents and the movie contains four different languages. Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington said it “is a film about the chaos of misunderstanding that often afflicts the world and how it can plunge us into confusion and tragedy”; Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called it “a theme of global miscommunication and dislocation”. However, to me, it is really a movie about our innate prejudice against others who are different from us, our isolation from our children, our unwillingness to communicate with each other, and further on, as symbolized in the Japan episode, our inability to communicate. In the Morocco episode, the whole family has to work hard to maintain a basic living standard. The parents are too busy simply putting food on the table to care about what their children are up to. In America, the couple (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) is engaged in their own emotional turmoil and pretty much leaves their kids to be cared for by their Mexican nanny. In Japan, a widowed father (played by Koji Yakusho) is caught up in his work and also hindered by his own culture that does not easily show outward emotions. He doesn’t fully understand his daughter’s anguish and is clueless about how to help her. In Mexico, a loving mother spends most of her time caring for other people’s children instead of her own so that she could support her family.

Arriaga’s script is simultaneously loose and tightly connected. At the beginning of the movie, there are many small details that seem to be left there for no specific purpose, but they are all picked up nicely as the story progresses. He sets up his characters’ fears innocently and later forces them to confront those fears. For example, Blanchett’s character Susan is nervous about the sanitary conditions in Morocco, but when she is injured, she is horrified to see a Moroccan doctor burn a needle over fire to sanitize it before stitching her wound with it; Susan’s daughter is scared of darkness, but when she is left with her nanny and her brother in a Mexican desert at night, she has no other choice but to spend the night in a vast dark unknown. Inarritu and his editors juxtapose images from different story lines to make a smooth transition from one story to another. Dripping blood from a headless chicken at a Mexican wedding quickly changes into Susan’s bloody shirt; one character on a stretcher becomes another one in an ambulance being transferred to a hospital. Inarritu is also a master at showing people’s daily lives, especially those of his fellow Mexicans. His scenes of the Mexican wedding are exuberant with quick hand-held camera movements and just intoxicating for the audience. The Japanese segment may be the weakest link in this movie. Arriaga’s choice of making the daughter deaf-mute is overly symbolic and the story stretches the boundary of plausibility. At the end, he even borrows some ideas from Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. The daughter gives a young sympathetic detective a note that we never get to read. It does not feel as natural as when Scarlett Johansson whispers into Bill Murray’s ears in Coppola’s movie. The actress who plays the daughter constantly reminds me of the ghosts in the Japanese horror film The Grudge.

Unfortunately, the international stars in the cast do not leave strong impressions in my mind after the movie. Pitt, channeling George Clooney in this movie, purposefully makes himself look older and more haggard, but he essentially has only a few facial expressions in his repertoire. Blanchett spends most of her screen time lying down and the movie is a mere exercise for her to constantly express physical and mental agony. My favorite Japanese actor Yakusho is also given too little to do. The Japanese segment almost completely concentrates on the deaf-mute daughter and it only has Yakusho at the beginning and the end. The most memorable performances belong to all the actors in Moroccan storyline and Adriana Barraza who plays Amelia, the Mexican nanny. They are so real that it is hard to separate them from the characters.

In Babel, Arriaga and Inarritu also expose Americans’ self-entitlement and superiority over other nations. When there is a crisis, we expect everyone to bend over backwards for us, to accommodate our needs and put our problems ahead of all else. However, when dealing with other people, we tend to assume the worst of them and do not even attempt to listen to them and understand their situations. In our way of pursuing a happy ending for ourselves, we have ignored all those tragedies happening elsewhere in the world.

The Queen

British director Stephen Frears is one of the most reliable contemporary filmmakers. His works may not become classics, but each one of them is a gem on its own. His latest movie, The Queen, is a masterpiece of personal portraits and may show future filmmakers how to make an intimate biopic.

Frears is frequently referred by critics as a director without any genre limitation and has a diversified group of films under his helm, but to me, there is always one theme in all his movies that I have seen – to humanize his characters. He likes to focus on people that are not in the mainstream. Whether they are gay interracial lovers, or French aristocrats, or a compulsive list maker, or an illegal Nigerian immigrant in London, he treats each of them with genuine affection and brings them to life as flesh and blood characters. In The Queen, he tackles another character that is far from ordinary – he chooses to present Queen of England, HM Elizabeth II, as the central subject. Screenwriter Peter Morgan wrote a wonderful and clever script. Instead of trying to show the Queen through her lifetime, Morgan singles out a crucial moment in Queen Elizabeth’s reign – the turbulent time right after Princess Diana’s tragic death in Paris. It was a pivotal time in the British monarchy, an incident that showed how the royal family had isolated itself too long from a modern society. In the movie, with the help of newly elected Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Queen finally makes a painful choice to bow to the wish of the people: she puts her own differences with Princess Diana aside, respects people’s desire and holds a public burial service.

Frears is an experienced director and his experiences shine through here. From the first minute till the last, he pays attention to every single detail. In the Palace, everything is meticulous and everyone follows a protocol; on Downing Street, messes are everywhere and people rush in and out. Frears uses little items to further contrast the two different life styles: at Blair’s residence, one sees his children’s photos and paintings on his tables, his doors and his walls, but one doesn’t discern any such intimacy in the royal palaces. As in his last movie, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Frears expertly mixes archival footages with his movie to add a sense of authenticity and history. He does not search for sensationalism. There is neither real footage nor reenactment for Princess Diana’s crash, and we don’t get a glimpse of either real Princess Diana or an actress playing her in the coffin. Frears knows when to leave a private moment private. When Prince Charles goes to claim Diana’s body in a Paris hospital, Frears lets audience only see him through glassed walls without hearing anything being said there.

Frears is an actors’ director. He has worked with many talented actors and actresses, but Helen Mirren will probably rank high on his list. Mirren has proved again and again that she is the most reliable actress in her generation, but in The Queen, she has surpassed all her past performances. Her Queen Elizabeth is the most understated performance of the year. She never raises her voice and keeps a polite façade at all times, but we can feel thousands of emotions with a lift of her eyebrows, wave of her hands and even her slight bow. Mirren’s Queen is sometimes condescending to her subjects without realizing her condescension at all; she enjoys her symbolic power over the country immensely and takes it seriously even though she doesn’t have any real power. The most poignant time in the movie occurs when Queen Elizabeth, stranded by the river in her family estate, comes face to face with a stag. Frears arranges the shot perfectly and Mirren carries the scene out beautifully. When the Queen first realizes that her four wheel drive is broken, she finally has a moment of collapse. However, we never see her cry and only get a glimpse of her back. That back shot conveys so much more than any tears could. Mirren’s shoulder is a better actress than most starlets in Hollywood. Then Mirren spots the stag, her face is transformed by the animal’s beauty and dignity. Mirren brings out so many feelings in that one single moment and she transcends Frears’ direction to a much higher ground. In Morgan’s script, the Queen has a tough time to show her feelings for her family members and she passes on all those affections to her animals. Mirren’s Queen cannot have a heart-to-heart conversation with her son, but she can quickly turn to her dogs and pat them affectionately on the heads; she can’t bring herself to see Princess Diana’s body, but she can’t wait even one minute to pay respect to the stag that was shot by a neighbor. In the movie, Mirren simply screams Oscar and I only hope that within next few months, there won’t be some starlet who suddenly decides to make herself unattractive and act seriously for once in her life. Those undeserving have gotten away with Oscar way too many times.

The movie also sends out an ambiguous message about our “modern” society. It is ironic that Princess Diana might have died precisely because of all the public interest on her that was once again displayed after her death. In the movie, Prince Philip may have summarized the situation the best: “Sleeping in the streets and pulling out their hair for someone they never knew. And they think we're mad!” I personally don’t find much wrong with the Queen’s desire to hold a private funeral. After all, it is a private matter. Whether it is the intention of the filmmakers or not, I have grown to have some respect for the Queen and the monarchy she so desperately tries to protect.

While watching the movie, I find that Mr. Blair may be the one who will benefit the most from this film. The Queen has learned to change her way to go with the people and that will be the only way for the monarchy’s survival. She has a realistic grasp about her popularity – that one minute you could be very popular and the next you could be completely out of the favor. At Diana’s death, Mr. Blair’s popularity even exceeded that of Winston Churchill, but as of now, he has been struggling within Britain and his own party because of his stance on war on terror. Maybe it is time for him to learn a thing or two from the Queen – respect people’s wishes.