This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

People, whatever be their religion, language or economic conditions are ultimately the same; they go through the same tribulations and have the same emotions; a shared humanity unites us all. A deaf mute girl struggles with sexual rejection and the loss of her mother to suicide in urban Japan. An American tourist in Morocco is accidentally shot by a shepherd boy trying out his new rifle. A Mexican nanny in Texas has to figure out a way to attend her son's marriage although she has been denied a leave as the parents of her wards are away. These seemingly unrelated stories are brought together through a thin connecting link. This is a heartbreakingly beautiful and poignant movie.

'Babel' is an authentic portrayal of the depletion of humanity and the terrible negligence of basic human values. The narrative of the movie moves along a spectrum of extreme emotional depth and execution of the the underlying morals in a deeply disturbing turn of events. The plot follows an accident faced by an American tourist which leads upto the unfolding of 3 different narratives which depicts 3 diffrent scenarios surrounding 3 different communities. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu masterfully manages to create the link between the 3 different scenarios by layering the thread of linking the narratives by giving the audiences to view the plot from 3 different scopes each which leads up to the scenarios depicted under each sub plot. The most amazing aspect of this is that the director has managed to layer the sub plots with abundant suspense all throughout the movie and rigorously emotional acting performances. Rinko Kikuchi who plays a young deaf Japanese girl creates maximum impact by coating the performance with enough emotional intensity and a marvelously convincing performance. Her pain of being treated differently is reflected through her glowing eyes in almost every scene she's in. Adriana Barraza's performance is no different and would make you reevaluate the core values a human should possess. The only negative aspect about the film that I witnessed are its confusing timelines surrounding the sub plots and the link between them leading up to the disturbing key event. The film would wreck you emotionally and disturb you to your heart's core which is exactly why you must see this film.

Just because a film deals with potentially interesting multi-culturally diverse subject matter does not mean that the film itself is interesting, or indeed multi-cultural. In fact there are some pretty offensive racial stereotypes employed throughout this film to progress the "story-line", such as it is:Bedouin goat-herders being portrayed as so ignorant and insensible that they will shoot at a bus for no good reason, and that one masturbates while thinking of his sister undressing. (what point was that scene trying to make exactly?)Middle-aged white tourists, who are obviously open-minded enough to be there in the first place suddenly becoming totally unreasonable and racist, believing the locals are all "out-to-get them" despite only one shot ever having been fired.That Morocco is so backward it would take more than a day to get access to better than veterinarian care.That the local US embassy staff would be stupid enough to classify a single shot as a terrorist event, even though it is this classification that apparently led to the delay in the ambulance.That a deaf-mute Japanese girl would be so desperate for "affection" that she would lick the face of her dentist and strip in front of a policeman she had only just met.That a Mexican nanny would be stupid enough to take the children in her care out of the country and try to return with a drunk at the wheel, despite being herself an illegal.etc etcFor a film with so many plaudits about it's "depth" and "insight" I find these hard to countenance.The 3 stories are essentially totally unconnected, with the writer forced to link them with some ridiculously unlikely happenstance. The art direction is average, with the shooting style making the film even more exhausting an ordeal than it already is.The acting was superb however, so full credit to the great cast. The score is also strong. These two facts alone are, I believe the reason most people seem to view this as art (which it isn't) rather than a poorly pulled-together set of unrelated and individually weak yarns.

a film. many stories. great actors. Babel has the gift to be more than a film. or giving a story. or proposing characters. it is a sort of manifesto. about the roots of every day reality. about the price of success, happiness, love, sacrifices, victories, sadness. and that did it a sort of poem. about its public more than about the evolution of characters. a film about mark of gestures. about decisions and believes and science to accept the truth. it is not easy to define it. because entire film is in the space of the frame of the last scenes. a film about ordinaries people. in a labyrinth. as parts of labyrinth. looking the second chance. or, more exactly, the essence of freedom against yourselves.