Just one more

Babel

Wrapping up my Oscar watch for 2006, I rented this one yesterday.

I liked the movie. Best movie of the year? Not in my book. Much of the criticism you may have read about the film is accurate. It's too long. The relationship between the various stories are slight (and in the case of the Japanese story, not even believable).

That being said, there is a lot to appreciate. Rinko Kikuchi is engrossing as a Japanese deaf-mute teenager who finds the only way she can cope with her isolation is through overt sexuality. (Frankly I'd rather have seen a whole film about her, and forgotten the rest.)

And Adriana Barraza makes a simple woman heartbreaking in her final scenes.

I just wish some of the lingering questions had been answered. How did Chieko's mother really die? Where did Richard "go" after his son's death?

Filmed in beautiful detail, Babel is a movie worth watching. Just enjoy it for what it is, and forget the hype.