Alejandro González Iñárritu never fails to impress me with his knack for weaving together disparate storylines. Amores Perros and 21 Grams have both taken pride of place on my DVD shelves for a while now, but Babel I would say is his most ambitious effort to date.
The story evolves when tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, touching off an interlocking story involving four different families.
Is it his best? Not even close. My main doubts after one viewing all lay within the Japanese section of the film. It feels like it's there to serve as plot filler. Japan, compared to the other two stories characters, depictions of the countries customs and cultural surroundings seems a sight more stereotypical and cliched. Nevertheless, all three stories do leave an impact. Babel is a hard-hitting, well acted, socially conscious drama at best. A good conclusion to the Iñárritu/Arriaga trilogy, now to watch them back to back.