Babel

EVERY so often a film comes along that shakes you to the core, transcending its cinematic format to say something brutally honest about the human condition.
The third instalment in a vague trilogy by director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, Babel is the first movie in quite some time to come within a cat's whisker of such a feat.
Babel is the far-flung story of a poor Moroccan man who buys a rifle to protect his goats.
Entrusting the weapon to his sons, tragedy soon strikes when the reckless boys start taking pot shots at a passing coach.
Unaware of the danger, an American tourist is in the unintentional firing line and is hit by a stray bullet.
This accident has consequences throughout the globe and propels a group of people into a sequence of tragic events, which also gives the audience a unique insight into each of their lives.

The troubled American couple must take refuge in a dangerous Moroccan village and suffer the selfish whims of the other tourists who want to get back to their hotel.
Meanwhile, a nanny is crushed between her obligations to look after the couple's children for one more day as well as attending her son's wedding in Mexico.
On the other side of the globe, a Japanese man struggling to connect with his deaf-mute daughter is quizzed about his link with the gun used in Morocco.
This arc of the story has been criticised for only holding a tenuous link with the core plot and perhaps this holds some weight.
But this becomes irrelevant when the film is able to portray so excellently the frustrations, loneliness and isolation a deaf person could feel.
This is a hard-hitting film that will stay with you long after you leave the cinema and the last scene is absolutely haunting.