| Issue #33, November 10, 2006 |
Guy de Fraumeni’s Hollywood In The Hamptons
Art imitates life. Or is it, life imitates art?
I do not allow myself to be assaulted by the cacophonic babbling of television, as most people know it and hang glued to it. The battering images of waxy faces under too much hair manipulation, shouting as if they don’t have mics and then, slam, bloody news clip explosions and slam, a commercial of bowel disturbance and slam, slam, slam, etc. back to gunfire in a TV series, interrupted by a series of screaming commercials and rat-tats and boom-booms and louder blah-blah-blahs. One doesn’t think to turn off the TV or want to. We’re living in the middle of a raucous hell out there that’s much worse, therefore, I can’t watch television. Though tough, I take in some films in search of some sense.
The awesome tangle of roaring global incoherence is encapsulated by Mexican director Alejandro Gonázlez Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga in Babel, their four-part drama inspired by Genesis 11:7-8 relating that God intervened in the construction of an over-ambitious tower meant to reach His heavens. God scrambled their language, so, unable to comprehend, they were scattered all over the earth, leaving the Tower of Babel unfinished. It is a fine parallel to our lives today. The filmmakers work in complex ways as part of their grand mix, but pay them mind and the tangle of lines does come together, unlike in our cock-eyed world where, in spite of the unbelievable amplification of sound and reach, we do not communicate. Race, religion, class, language, politics and even sports can put people at each others’ throats, most likely brought to the raging point by the incessant hub-bub and, of course, terrorists here and abroad.
Multicultural collisions leap from barren Morocco, to San Diego’s wealth, to the impoverished Mexican border to the ultra-electrically incited Tokyo. Languages and dialects pound at us, including sign language. Time, too, is reshuffled to bamboozle us. That’s life. In the hot, Moroccan desert Richard and Susan, American tourists, richly acted by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, are rolling along uncomfortably in a tour bus. They are attempting to heal a grave hurt following their baby son’s death. It’s not working. Wildly, Susan is shot, accidentally by a shepherd boy who took potshots at the bus. In the meager village, Richard behaves badly in his furor to get modern help. The boy’s father had given the rifle to the boy to keep jackals away from the goat herd. And, small world, we learn the rifle is connected to a Tokyo businessman as the shooting accident is being inflated by media hype into an international incident, naturally involving terrorists.
Across continents, Susan and Richard’s other children are warmly attended by their housekeeper, Amelia, played by Adriana Barraza, who has whisked them off to attend her son’s marriage near Tijuana. With them is her tough-guy nephew, Santiago. It’s Gael Garcia Bernal enjoying being a bad centavo. What was to be a happy time becomes a tragedy as Amelia is left isolated at the border, the result of the Bush failed immigration policy. The strain of disaster will not let up. The shooting “incident” has bled to Tokyo where Koji Yakusho, the man originally responsible for the weapon, has been attempting to deal with his wife’s suicide. This has made it difficult to be of help to his deaf-mute daughter, Chieko, portrayed with remarkable and uncanny sensitivity by Rinko Kikuchi. Chieko is rattled and on fire with sexuality, some of it stroked inadvertently by her father. She’s driven to provocative sexuality and promiscuity.
Go to see this film when you are steeled for a sensibility beating. There’s a Tokyo disco scene where Chieko is battered by the reverberations of ear-shattering music. Suddenly, the sound cuts out and we hear only what Chieko hears. A climatic scene of her standing nude on the balcony of an apartment, mile-high above the busy, glittery streets far, far below, is numbing. Strangled and solitary cannot better be envisioned, and vulnerability never more moving than this scene.
Performances soar and penetrate Babel. In spite of its soul-ripping bruising it is a thing of beauty, due in great part to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s lovely artist’s eye. Iñárritu’s search for answers is far from complete. Its fractured structure stands incomplete, much like the first doomed tower. Be aware, however, that the tower remains a legendary historic landmark. The Bible’s epic Tower to Heaven was constructed by the Babylonians to affirm their self–acclaimed greatness. God didn’t need their company. Ironically, its location is in what is now Iraq.
Babel is life as art.
GuyJean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award-winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at major film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmys and various film festivals. Sarah Halsey assists him.
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