Two Moroccan children transitioning from childhood to adolescence, a vacationing couple struggling to regain their lost bond, a mother teetering on handling the responsibilities of her family with another and a deaf Japanese girl finding acceptance in an alien world that exists beyond her doorstop. These four stories of strife are united by one tragic accident in Babel.

Anybody familiar with Alejandro González Iñárritu's previous works knows of his mastery of taking multiple personal tales and weaving them into an opus reflecting to us the power of our actions no matter how seemingly small. Like most other work of this type (i.e. Traffic, Syriana) there is almost a fly-in-the-wall, documentary feel as we observe the effect one action can have on so many different people. (On a side note, I still wonder if some of the characters in the film were actually played by actors or folk culled from the locations being filmed.) I have always been a fan of these splice-of-life megadramas for their complexity and raw honesty. Ever engaging, the work is indeed powerful and left me still shaken well after viewing.

Babel on Internet Movie Database