I like the movie Babel, but it made me feel not good, even a bit cranky when I was watching it. It looks like no matter who you are (an American, a Mexican, a Japanese or a Moroccan) and where you are, you have your own way suffer and your life sucks anyway.

American is tasting the bitter side of the fruit they had planted; Japanese always look like have some sort of mental disorder, really struggling between who they are and who they want to be regardless how rich they are; Mexican had to go back where they came from, the border between Mexico and America looks so clear that would not mingle the people from two different worlds; and Moroccan, I wouldn’t judge them as pool fellows, but their life looks the least valuable in this world, which can finish over in a second in a gun shot. Of course, lacking of education, some of them also treat other people’s life like shits.

This is the world we are living in and living with everyday, regardless what’s going on around you at this moment. You don’t have to know it or admit it as a reality, but you sooner or later will be involved in this or that way. In this world, we might have thought that we are the same, we are equivalent on the rights and obligations, but this is not true. People from different cultures and background are still not able to communicate at the same level once they are out of their usual world (Americans trapped in a Moroccan desert, two American kids lost in a Mexican border and a deaf Japanese girl alone in a hearing world), and most of time, it’s not because of the language barriers, but something else, something really bitter, something that out of human’s limits.

It’s a great movie though, I wondered what “Babel” means. I looked up in the Internet, and found it actually refers to “the Gate of God” or “a Tower built by a unite humanity to reach to Heavens”, but it is an attempt which ultimately fails. As what Wikipedia said, “None of the struggles of the film’s characters is resolved, and the ending even suggests a gloomy future for some of the characters. We are made to ask if any one life was ‘better’ than the others, but additionally which tragedy touched us most, and why.”

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By the way, a little note about the actor Brad Pitt: About 7 years ago I stopped being attracted by Brad Pitt:-) but I have to admit that I like his performance in Babel. He didn’t play cool, neither did he look great (as he normally does), but he looked full of compassion and well interpreted a human’s instinct reaction. His character has a depth and sort of a soul. I guess for him, it wasn’t a hard role to play as he is an experienced actor and it wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to play a father and a husband who is in a crisis moment. Most importantly, in this movie, you feel he is nobody, just one of six billions people in this world, the same kind of helplessness and the same kind of bad luck.