Babel

StudiosIntriguingly, each of the locations of BABEL has played a role in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s life. González Iñárritu took a life-changing trip to Morocco at age 17, and from the minute he was first introduced to that country’s shimmering deserts and soulful mountains, he determined he would one day make a movie there. In this age of terrorism and fear, the setting became even more relevant to Iñárritu’s story of mixed up communication and mistaken motives.

Intriguingly, each of the locations of BABEL has played a role in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s life. González Iñárritu took a life-changing trip to Morocco at age 17, and from the minute he was first introduced to that country’s shimmering deserts and soulful mountains, he determined he would one day make a movie there. In this age of terrorism and fear, the setting became even more relevant to Iñárritu’s story of mixed up communication and mistaken motives.

Similarly, the director’s previous visits to Japan inspired him to commit to returning one day with a movie camera. In 2003, he went to that country to promote 21 GRAMS, and visited a place named Hakone, a landmark mountain with steaming thermal waters that struck him as magical. While climing up the Hakone mountain, he saw old man taking care of a mentally-retarded adolescent Japanese girl with such love and dignity that the image had a powerful effect on him – leading to the idea of telling the story of a relationship between two isolated people in the middle of bustling Japan. Later on, the strange and constant appearance of deaf people in that same trip, became the seed of the Japanese story,

Another influence on González Iñárritu as he forged BABEL was his own recent move from his former home in Mexico City to the United States. The director knew he wanted to set one of his stories against the deadly and highly contentious border between the U.S. and Mexico. “Being an immigrant myself, I gained a clearer perspective of myself, my country and my own work. I also now understand what it feels like being a Third World citizen living in the First World country, and the complexity of its significance.”

Production of BABEL began in Morocco in May of 2005, then moved on to Mexico and Tokyo – but wherever the production traveled, González Iñárritu attempted to bring the same sensibility. “We wanted to blend ourselves into each of the cultures,” he says. “We wanted to transcend the black-and-white view of the outsider or tourist.”

In Morocco, the key was finding a location to stand in for the village of Tazarine, a small, tight-knit enclave in the southern desert. González Iñárritu had a very clear vision of what he wanted – a traditional-feeling community featuring a central plaza with a mosque, little or no foliage and roads large enough for a tour bus (not to mention a few production vehicles) – and set out to find it.

Following a series of scouts near Ouarzazate, Morocco´s now burgeoning film center, González Iñárritu found the remote Berber village of Taguenzalt. The village, built into the rocky gorges of the Draa Valley, boasts ancient, adobe-style houses (ksours) with rooms facing around an inner courtyard. On rooftops, Berber women saturate wool in vats of boiling water, using henna, indigo, saffron, and other ancient dyes to make the prized rugs named for the Berber people.

Each night the sky, dusted by fierce Saharan winds, glows orange and red as the sun sets."I liked that this village was very humble and very real,” comments González Iñárritu. “The people in Taguenzalt were extremely nice and spiritual. And I mean really spiritual. I felt safe there."

Director
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Cast
Brad Pitt - Richard
Cate Blanchett - Susan
Gael García Bernal - Santiago
Elle Fanning - Debbie
Koji Yakusho - Yasujiro
Adriana Barraza - Amelia
Rinko Kikuchi - Chieko
Said Tarchani - Ahmed
Boubker Ait El Caid - Yussef
Nathan Gamble - Mike
Mohamed Akhzam - Anwar
Peter Wight - Tom