Stream tonight: a forgotten masterpiece with Brad Pitt that rivals even ‘Seven’ and ‘Fight Club’.

“Seven”, “Fight Club”, “12 Monkeys” – even though these titles have all been around for a few years (decades), anyone who is only marginally interested in cinema remembers them. Seems against it “Babel”another movie with Brad Pitt in a leading role, apparently somewhat forgotten. I find this all the more surprising because it is an excellent production by the globally renowned director Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Amores perros”, “The Revenant”) and it was nominated for seven Oscars for good reason. The media also celebrated “Babel” and even the movie. For example, as with the masterpieces mentioned at the beginning, we gave the highest grade in our FILMSTARTS review:

Okay, I too hadn’t seen “Babel” since I saw it in theaters and had put it aside until I came across it again a while ago. I only had vague memories of the action. Other than the names of the main characters, I initially knew this was the case is an episodic film set on three continents and whose segments are loosely connected.

But then I remembered that especially the part that took place in Japan had deeply affected me emotionally at the time. And that after the credits I floated out of the room as if on clouds; almost carried by the visual and narrative power of what was happening on the screen before my eyes. This memory was enough for me to spontaneously watch “Babel” – something I can also recommend if you are still looking for tonight’s film program. It doesn’t matter if you saw the movie a long time ago or maybe you don’t even know it yet.

For example, you can stream ‘Babel’ on Amazon Prime Video:

The story (or stories) of “Babel”

‘Babel’ tells these three parallel stories, all connected:

After a stroke of fate, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) try to save their marriage while on vacation in Morocco. But in the middle of the desert, two shepherd boys (Said Tarchani, Boubker Ait El Caid) fooling around shoot at the carriage and Susan is fatally hit.

Meanwhile, Nanny Amelia (Adriana Barraza) cares for the couple’s (Elle Fanning, Nathan Gamble) offspring at home in California. Because the elderly Mexican woman doesn’t want to miss her son’s wedding back home, she and her cousin (Gael Garcia Bernal) quickly smuggle the children across the border.

At the same time, deaf-mute teenager Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) in Tokyo is busy coping with her mother’s suicide.

Brad Pitt – more wrinkled and wrinkled than ever before

Today we know Brad Pitt as a versatile and – if his appearance is appropriate – rather unpretentious character actor. At the time, however, many fans and one or two critics were shocked that the American, who until then had mainly been portrayed as an impeccable beau, apparently willingly allowed himself to be photographed up close with crow’s feet and bags under the eyes in “Babel”.

In 2006, I thought the heartthrob, who had just entered his 40s, was now ready to not only accept his advancing age, but even deal with it on camera. In ‘Babel’ he has in any case cleverly used the first small imperfections to substantiate his performance and to give Richard’s character more depth. Looking at Pitt’s visual and facial expressions in subsequent titles like “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” or “Inglourious Basterds”, I actually don’t seem to be that wrong with this interpretation to have.

But it’s not just Pitt’s performance that’s great. Besides him, to this day I especially love the then newcomer Rinko Kikuchi (“Pacific Rim”), who showed herself so vulnerable yet strong-willed with a fearless performance, and Koji Yakusho (“The Geisha”), who played her helpless father. Said Tarchani and Boubker Ait El Caid portray the two little goatherds equally convincingly. Unfortunately, the latter have never appeared in a major film since.

Virtuosity behind the camera

What really impressed me when I first watched it, and now when I rewatched it, was the elegance and apparent ease with which the film brings together and connects the thematically and tonally, but also visually very different segments of “Babel” into a complex, yet surprisingly coherent whole.

All three stories are so complex that each would actually be worth a separate feature film. Masterfully combined by Iñárritu and decorated in fantastic-looking images, the result here is more than the sum of its parts. For me it is great cinema with tension and ambition, which makes you think about actions and consequences for days.

Those who enjoy the work in its original language with subtitles will be treated to dialogue in five languages ​​(English, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and sign language). In addition, each of the four main locations (a simple desert village in Morocco, an affluent neighborhood in San Diego, rural Mexico and the mega-metropolis of Tokyo) was filmed by lead cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (“Brokeback Mountain”, “The Wolf Of Wall Street”) with a unique appearance in terms of color palette and light. Moreover, there are shifts or jumps in the time plane.

Nevertheless, with the help of his screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (“Three Burials”) and the two brilliant editors Douglas Crise (“The Ice Road”) and Stephen Mirrione (“Traffic”), Iñárritu ensures that I am never put off by the visual and emotional flow of stimuli felt overwhelmed or even lost from sight. He manages to fully mentally involve me in all these scenarios and make the two and a half hours of playing time, which at first seemed quite excessive, fly by.