Babel represents an advance for the team of director Alejandro Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga over their previous collaboration, the needlessly convoluted 21 Grams. This is an intense, absorbing narrative of four stories which are connected in non-traditional ways. The audience is not aware of all of these connections until the end of the film; many of the characters never become aware of them.

One theme is how politics, language and cultural barriers, and the means to overcome them, have unintended consequences. For instance, how did international politics delay the medical treatment of a wounded American woman in Morocco? Was it also complicated by the use of sign language by a deaf-mute teenage girl in Japan? On top of this, how did the delay of treatment affect an undocumented Mexican woman's life in San Diego?

The film intercuts all of their stories in an exciting and original way, but the fracturing of the narrative can unsettle audiences. That's why it didn't hurt for these trailblazing filmmakers to have a little of the showman in them. The film is front-loaded with mega-star power (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), fair-haired moppets in peril, hot Japanese schoolgirl outfits and, to nail it down, the supremely appealing Adriana Barraza as the Mexican woman. Smart moves all. If you're going to demand so much of an audience, give them candy in every bite.

Afterwards, one is forced to think of the ways modern technology creates new interdependencies between people, even if they live on different continents and will never meet each other.




The N.Y. Times had an interesting article (12/27/06, B7) concerning how immigrant children are tested in English proficiency as part of the No Child Left Behind law. It seems the law requires testing of third and fourth graders who may have been in the school for only a year. This often lowers the overall test scores for the school, and can mean the loss of federal money. But isn't the purpose of the law to evaluate how the school is performing? Advocates of the law say that you need a basis to compare the child's progress, and that it helps the child to have that as soon as possible. Opponents contend that a poor score will stigmatize the child, and actually slow the learning process. An additional factor is the community's image to prospective homebuyers who may choose to live in a district where the schools have highest scores.

Although the legal implications remain open to debate, one thing is certain: the law is forcing us to re-examine assumptions about the necessary language skills of an educated person in this country. All children, no matter what their native language, need to begin acquiring those skills while they are young. If language barriers prevent the child from learning them, how will that person be able to live independently after graduating from high school? This is a problem today, and it will only get worse without a new approach in public education. I will be addressing this issue in the future. I would like to hear from teachers and others involved in bi-lingual education.