Thoughts on the movie "Babel"?

I just finished watching it on DVD ... I can't even tell how I feel about it, except I know it was a grueling experience. That's the best way I can explain it.

Part of me thinks it was brilliant. Another part thinks, "There is nothing intrinsically valuable about watching people suffer and be miserable for two and a half straight hours."

I guess there was some hugging and stuff at the end to give us a semblance of a happy ending (in a way. The Moroccan boy died, right?).

Wondering what other movie afficianados may have thought of the film?

 

I saw at the dollar movie theatre last week (Yes, I'm cheap) and I liked it a lot more than I thought it would. I heard some people say it was too preachy or artsy, or too something. But I thought it was excellent.

I guess the overall point was how a lack of communication can doom us all? Or something like that.

 

I enjoyed it, but don't really understand all the pre-Oscar hype. The stuff with the deaf-mute was a little strange. I heard a lot of comparisons to Crash, which I feel is 100x better. It definitely wasn't one of the five best movies I saw this year.

 

blatantly manipulative from the get-go

 

It was well done, and the main them I got was just how we all jump to assumptions about one another. Very much like Crash that way, and you can criticize it as a knockoff with little argument from me. But in addition to that, it emphasizes some things we take for granted in this country (like immediate access to health care, screwed up as it may be). The biggest hole for me was the border patrol agents on the Mexican border who apparently spoke no Spanish at all. Surely we're better off than that, aren't we?

 

I hated myself a little more for renting it. Five bucks down the drain.