Babel is Breathtaking

The most disgusting part of my weekend, oddly enough, came in the middle of one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a theater this year. Babel, the new movie from acclaimed director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, is a breathtaking achievement. While I still believe that Amores Perros is the strongest installment in his trilogy of films (also including 21 Grams) with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, Babel is a force to be reckoned with.

While Babel has haunted me the past few days with its stark imagery and beautiful cinematography, the vision of Rinko Kikuchi (delivering a flawless portrayal of the deaf-mute character of Chieko) entering a discotheque has circled my thoughts relentlessly. Rinko delivers, perhaps, the best performance in Babel. She also provided the audience at the E Street Theater an opportunity to gasp, or chuckle, or in some other way, malign the nature of communication between deaf-mutes. Therein lies the most disgusting part of my weekend.

In the theater that night, the place that people are frequently exposed to worlds they otherwise might never see, I found people mocking the very disability that Innaritu and Arriaga so valiantly capture in gut-wrenching scenes about youth and sexuality. Granted, it was not overt, but it was noticeable. As Chieko grunted and signed her way through conversations with her friends and father, people laughed quietly in their seats. It was not an isolated incident. As a Moroccan family eats their food, sitting on the ground, with their bare hands, people giggled or whispered in their neighbor's ear. I was too wrapped in the delicate, fluid pace of the film to bother. But I am still pissed. And disappointed.

There is a good chance you might not offend anyone who is deaf-mute in a setting like that. With the lights off and everyone facing forward, they might not understand you. Hopefully, they wouldn't give you the opportunity to make an excuse, or apologize. It is simply deplorable behavior, that I would hope, in this day and age, wouldn't exist. Especially in an Innaritu film on the night after its limited release. But it does. Hopefully Innaritu continues to make these beautiful films about understanding, life, loss and hope. This world desperately needs them.

Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel are all cinematic marvels that reach into the complex worlds of relationships, religion, international relations, Christianity, sex, and violence in places such as Mexico, Japan, Morocco, and California only to create seamless revelations on love, faith, and humaity. There are definitely misguided people that need these films, to break their misconceptions and help them realize that whether you are born with the ability to hear or not, if you have the luxury of a developed society or not, we are all still pumping the same blood, breathing the same air and trying to understand the subtleties of life and the nuances of our neighbor.

Babel opens everywhere Friday.