Change Your Image
rdhad
Reviews
Babel (2006)
Drivel
An interesting plot device was used in this film - instead of heightened tension, the viewer is sent into a continuously downward emotional spiral. Instead of really caring about any of the characters, you just become resigned to the inevitable depressing unraveling of their lives. Oh wait a minute. That was just for the poor people. The rich people actually come out mostly OK...huh.
I am amazed that there have not been massive complaints from Morrocans. The two boys guarding their goat herd are portrayed as incestuous idiots - BOTH of them think it is perfectly OK to shoot at moving vehicles containing people just to see how far bullets from their high-powered rifle will go. And even more amazingly, even though the kid shoots at the tourist bus from the right hand side - he manages to hit Cate Blanchett from a window on the opposite side of the bus directly into her left shoulder. Perhaps the director thought it would diminish his insulting portrayal of the Morroccan family if they were at least superhuman marksmen.
The Japanese story line was the most interesting, and most poignant - and the most tenuously related to the rest of what was going on. A rather silly way to attach it to the rest of the movie, actually. I walked out of the theatre feeling like I had wasted my time and my money. Amazingly, this one-trick pony of a plot with a glaring continuity error will probably walk away with all sorts of Academy awards. Confirming that the Oscar process is a load of babel itself.
How Harry Became a Tree (2001)
A Buried Jewel
As an American, it took me a bit to get used to the language of rural Ireland in the 1920's, but this film draws you into a world that seems not at all foreign after a while. Unlike the relentlessly depressing "The Field", this is a drama of real tragedies - the small, silly tragedies that we create and that are created for us- and also, of real hope. The original Irish title of this film "How Harry Became a Tree" is so much more fitting than the US "Bitter Harvest" (what were they thinking?), though fortunately the brilliant allegory of the tree is not lost with the title change. Performances are universally outstanding and poignant, the photography beautiful, the music haunting. See this film and see how the Irish continue to astonish with their mastery of language and vision.