Honoring ‘Babel’
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.16.07 | 9:41 PM ET
I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
ianmack 01.17.07 | 12:49 PM ET
I really enjoyed the film as well. I saw it with a few friends (instead of seeing the new James Bond). I guess you could say Babel is…heavy. We left the theatre pretty speechless. I wasn’t sure what to think of the film at first—certainly it’s a beautiful tapestry of diverse cultures. But the scale of human suffering, perpetuated by the inability to communicate with eachother, and realize all suffering is the same; that’s the message I’m left with.
Jim Benning 01.18.07 | 2:31 AM ET
Great points. It was so heavy that I think I appreciated the film more after several days had passed since I’d seen it.