《通天塔》Babel英文影评

《通天塔》Babel英文影评

《通天塔》babel英文影评

the bible gives us the story of the tower of babel,the magnificently tallstructure whose height was deemed offensive and impertinent by god.to punishhumanity for its architectural hubris,god then decided to drive a linguisticwedge between the nations of the world,who until then had spoken the sametongue.as fables go,this is a particularly effective one in that it bothillustrates a moral --don‘t think you‘re better than god or you shall be struckdown with all speed --and also provides a handy answer to those who wonderedwhy there are so many different languages anyway.

in babel,directed and co-written by alejandro gonzález iñárritu (21 grams,amores perros),a clutch of characters from a range of cultures and walks oflife attempt to build a towering film of meaning from coincidence and portent;unfortunately,in the end it is the viewer who is punished for the filmmaker‘shubris.

what is one even supposed to make of this film,where so many stories andmoments seem to strain for larger import but end up only as fractured shards ofdisconnected drama?it is,after all,a film whose director had the good senseto cast cate blanchett,but the inexcusably bad taste to then give her a role inwhich she‘s required to spend the bulk of her screen-time unconscious or barelycoherent.(it‘s sort of like getting anthony hopkins for your movie and thenkilling him off in the first 30 seconds.)

blanchett plays susan,a rich california tourist roaming around moroccowith her husband richard (a pleasantly grizzled brad pitt).as their bus wendsits way through the mountains,a pair of young shepherds are roaming above,testing a new rifle‘s accuracy with the abandon of immature brothers.thetragedy of

unintended consequences：in a scene that‘s heartstopping for itsmatter-of-factness,a bullet smacks through the bus window,seriously woundingthe sleeping susan.