Though there were a few good scenes for Japanese language students, as a movie overall I found Babel very painful and unpleasant to watch, and with no inspiring or significant message.
Babel is a sophisticated and polished production featuring flickers of connected tragic stories from around the world. The stories as presented felt more independent than reliant on one another, and none of them left me enlightened, educated, or significantly entertained. No matter how well produced, I need a movie to do more than just eat up my time. And if it is only going to be a somewhat abstract and intentionally pointless artistic exercise, I certainly don't want it to feed me endless emotional trauma with no reward.
This film was effective if its goal was to depress me and cause me to feel tremendous sorrow for the characters, especially the isolated and sad Japanese teenage deaf character. But I want more than that from a movie.
My own film in development features a deaf character that I am trying to cast with a deaf actress. It is interesting for me to study how deaf characters are portrayed in movies. Though the deaf character in Babel was played by the talented Rinko Kikuchi, a hearing actress, being able to observe how her character was integrated into the film did add some additional appeal and interest for me during my viewing of Babel.
The talent of those involved with this production is undeniable, and many will enjoy this film for the first rate performances and outstanding direction and production quality. The talent, skill, and hard work required to get this movie made is admirable, but I like to be entertained and educated by movies, not simply awed.
Babel is simpy too much pain and suffering with not enough reward. I am probably a "fragile" movie-goer by many people's standards. Tougher viewers will likely fair better than I with this production.
