New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
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Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
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Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi
Description: Multi-lingual thriller drawing together three seemingly unrelated storylines. Married couple Richard and Susan are travelling through Morocco when their tour bus comes under fire from an unseen sniper. In Mexico, housekeeper Amelia takes charge of her employers' children for the weekend but her trip to a family wedding ends in disaster. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, deaf-mute student Chieko begins to explore her sexuality, with surprising consequences.
Country: US/MEX. 2006. 143mins
A Babel of voices: a single event has repercussions across the world
Pipped at the post by Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley at Cannes but now the recipient of the Golden Globe for best film, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu's extraordinary movie, written, like Amores Perros and 21 Grams, by Guillermo Arriaga, is his most ambitious yet.
It takes in the whole world as it illustrates, in four separate but linked segments, how small mistakes often have larger consequences and how poorly an ever-shrinking universe manages to communicate. This is a powerful and brilliantly made film. There are, however, moments when its pretensions get the better of it.
The initial sequence has two children in a mountain village in Morocco, given a gun by their father to protect their sheep from predators, who fire a round at a tourist bus. On it are an American couple Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) on holiday to repair a shaky marriage. She is badly hurt by the stray bullet and her fight for treatment leads to an international incident with terrorist overtones.
When the couple can't get home, their two children, in the care of a kindly but illegal immigrant (Adriana Barraza), travel into Mexico with her nephew (Gael García Bernal) to attend a wedding. A border patrol chases and catches them on their return. Finally, in Japan, a deaf-mute teenager (Rinko Kikuchi) indulges in risky sexual escapades after the suicide of her mother. It turns out that her distant father sold the gun to the Moroccan family in the first place.
There are scenes everywhere in the film that illustrate how good a filmmaker Iñarritu is. For instance, the desperate-moment when Susan is hit by the bullet and Richard realises that the bus wants to depart and there is only a vet in the village to help her, apart from an old woman who offers opium.
The performances here are as intense as the film-making, as is the portrait from the less experienced Kikuchi as Chieko in the final episode.
But if the film seems intent on illustrating the butterfly effect, which has it that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can cause a tornado half a world away, it doesn't entirely convince. It's much better on the lack of understanding we have for each other and the chaos that can result.
The film, made in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Berber and Arabic, also makes its point about the difficulties of language most effectively. But while it never loses its grip, its ambitions come across as hollower and more grandiose than its director and writer intended. There's not much optimism about human existence to be found in Babel, even though most of us in real life, I believe, actually have as much good luck as bad.
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Terrible tosh. Pitt is so wooden the Morrocans should have made a big fence out of him and the story is more familiar than Oliver Reed on the sauce. Thank god for the unknown locals. At least they could act. Avoid.
- Kerry, Acton
Couldn't rate this film highly enough. Absoloutely fastasticly shot, great characters, even better plot and the pace doesn't let up throughout. I normally feel a bit ripped off by cinemas after what they charge for entry, not this time. Worth every penny.
- Andy, Clapham
This is an extraordinary film. I know some have found it's ambition and scale a mite pretensious, but I didn't. I loved the audaciousness of the movie, and the fact that it dared to be DIFFERENT!
Even Brad Pitt, who can be a fairly wooden actor at times, gives the performance of his life here.
But really, it is unfair to single anyone out because all the performances are special, from the unknown moroccan and japanese actors to your hollywood mainstream.
Rivetting. If you love film don't miss this treat.
- Sev, Brighton, England
Top Class film. My advice is to not go see this alone, take a loved one and a box of tissues, those around you, if not you, will need it.
- Terrell, Germany
I saw Babel when it was first shown at the film festival in Cannes in May 2006 and I loved it. It is so intense, I was riveted to my seat! This is a highly emotional movie and you really welcome the comparatively peaceful scenes shot in Tokyo after the very tense actions taking place in the south of Morocco and at the US/Mexican border. The Mexican actress (Adriana Barraza) is absolutely brilliant in the role of the American couple's child minder.
- Jacques, Cannes - France
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