Sunday, February 25, 2007

Babel


I read somewhere that when it comes to works of art, creating something that says that life is awful is always easier than creating something that says life is good. That statement came to my mind a lot as I watched this movie that spends more than two hours telling you how ironically terrible life can be. Not only telling you that but hitting you with a hammer to make the point.

When the film ended I also realized something: the shallowness of this movie. Since the movie jumps between different stories, there is really no time for character development. So you get cliched characters having breakdowns or facing terrible tragedy. All shot in a 1980's MTV video style, in the sense that it is all very pretty and well filmed, but the characters are cardboard, you don't get inside the head of any of them.

Which is not to say I hated the movie. There were some good things in it. But it was nothing special.

3 comments:

Samuel Medina said...

The movie can't go and be happy all of a sudden. It must stay with it's theme, and unfortunately it was kinda melodramatic; specially the part when (Gael) leaves the children with the nanny in the middle of the border desert, completely non-practical. But, neither the case, the flick flows nicely all the way to the end.

One last thing, I don't agree with you that it was shot in a 80's MTV-esque style. Honestly, I don't understand the comparison. Please explain.

KoiStar said...

I don't agree. in a world where "Wild Hogs" is the number one movie in America I don't really believe that it is easier to make a "depressing" flick like Babel than a happy go lucky mediocre piece of crap that tends to appeal more to the masses...

carol said...

Yo la he visto dos veces, I thought it was genius.. a diferencia de 21 Grams, que la vi el otro dia y la quite cuando llevaba una hora, porque la trama estaba muy estupida.