Babbling

In Amores Perros, Alejandro González Iñárritu synthesized Tarantino, Altman, Scorsese and Cassavetes to exhilarating effect. The sprawling, interwoven stories; the non-linear sequencing; the underclass violence; the documentary realism—very little of what the director showed us was truly new, but the combination was undoubtedly exciting, intense, even pointed and poignant. Predating Crash by a good five years, the film spun off a web of vaguely connected stories from a single car crash to look at the way class differences, love (or what passes for it), violence, and friendship—even with pets—alternately connect and separate disparate groups of people living in the messy, often perilous, confines of Mexico City. It was a vivid, if sometimes brutal, dissection of society that let the guts all hang out.

With 21 Grams, Iñárritu took pushed his approach even further—some would say well past its breaking point. No one would argue against the performances—Watts, Penn, and Del Toro all tower, bellowing and emoting with end of life intensity. But the movie’s fractured structure—no one scene follows another in the timeline—and unrelentingly depressing tone put off some viewers. Like Darren Aranofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, the movie was a harrowing tour de force from a promising sophomore director, an expertly crafted emotional assault that seemed determined to drown viewers in a pool of sorrow. Perhaps rightly, some were bothered when the film wouldn’t let them up for air.

Now, Iñárritu is back with the Brad Pitt-starring Babel, and from the looks of things, he’s still clutching the same bag of downer movie tricks. Apple has the trailer, and as expected, it’s soulful and dourly gorgeous. Despite agreeing with some of the criticisms of 21 Grams—it could’ve used some trimming and a little more linearity—I’m a fan of Iñárritu’s work, and Babel looks like another addition to what promises to be the most interesting, maybe even the best, fall movie season since 1999.