Mexican director
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu came to prominence with his award
winning film Amores Perros in 2000. This also introduced
his star Gael Garcia Bernal to an international audience.
Since then the two men have enjoyed further success, Inarritu
with 21 Grams, and Bernal with films such as Y Tu Mama Tambien,
Bad Education and The
Motorcycle Diaries.
They are reunited in Babel, a film with seemingly unrelated
human stories set in contrasting locations around the world.
But slowly, as events unfold, the connection between them
becomes apparent.
Do you see Babel as the culmination of a trilogy, after
Amores Perros and 21 Grams?
Inarritu: “I see this film as the last piece of a
triptych that started with Amores Perros. I think together
they are built as a body of work not only because of the
content –parents and children unite them in some common
subject matter – but formally too, they combine different
stories. One story and one character is combined and defined
by the others. So formally and substantially they belong
to a family, yes.”
How has your working relationship with Alejandro changed
since Amores Perros?
Bernal: “I think that the first experience we had
was a whirlwind where I participated in only five weeks of
a 13 week shoot. I had read the script, I knew more or less
what the stories were about but obviously you don’t
know the colour, or the context, you have no idea of the
impact it was going to have. That process was very instinctive,
it was very irrational in a way and incredibly organic I
think. Now what I can see is that we’re a bit more
aware of the craft and the things that are not important
that we shouldn’t bother about. But at the same time
we have the same instinctive energy, maybe the same stamina
but with an added bonus in that maybe now we are more curious,
because the more you do the more you realise you don’t
know anything.”
Inarritu: “One thing I can tell you is that I felt
the same that I felt doing Amores Perros which is I that
Gael has a way to approach things that is very fresh, to
not over rationalise or over intellectualise, and I believe
in the power of innocence more than experience. Every time
I’m challenged with a film I think that I haven’t
learned anything, that every film is different and everything
I have learned is useless in this new adventure. So I try
to take out all that experience and approach it like it’s
virgin territory which makes me very aware and very afraid
of the situation. And that’s great.”
How easy is it telling a story like this through the eyes
of younger actors?
Inarritu: “With the kids I try to be very simple,
I try to help them trigger some image, you know. I always
use ‘as if you are doing this’, trying to connect
them with a very particular emotion of their life experience,
if they can just bring 5% of that then they can apply it.
Imagination is the key element with kids, to play that game
with them. Some of them are really mature I think – scarily
mature. Elle Fanning is more mature than me I think, that’s
scary sometimes, they are like little adults. That’s
the way I work, I try to clarify the actor’s objectives
in the scene, their dramatic objective and what they want
to achieve and how they can achieve it. And I try to clarify
very simple things just to find the action that will drive
them.”
Did working with the Moroccan kids & American kids reinforce
the feeling that we’re all the same under the skin?
Inarritu: “Yeah, but I have to say there is a big
difference. The Moroccan kids were very, very humble kids,
especially Boubker [Ait El Caid], was of the street almost.
They were really streetwise guys, theirs was like another
approach in life. They’re not used to having managers,
publicists, you know what I mean? The American kids were
very polite and more educated and more used to being waited
on – it was a huge difference. In the end they are
kids, but I had to approach them very differently.”
Bernal: “There was a point in the film where the Mexican
kids were playing tag with Nathan [Gamble] and Elle [Fanning]
they were just kids, they were mingling together. As a child
you don’t question differences. They’re the first
ones to reinforce the fact that we are all the same.”
Gael, your character is quite ambiguous, how did you see
him?
Bernal: “Santiago is a kid that ends up being the
catalyst of the tragedy that occurs in Tijuana. He provides
the vehicle and he is the vehicle of this tragedy. On a very
immediate level you can just say that his reaction to the
border guard was a mistake fuelled by alcohol. But you can
see it on a different level in that he’s reacting in
a very primal way, he’s resentful of, as Alejandro
calls it, the rite of humiliation that he has to go through
every time he crosses the border. This resentment is another
thing, maybe that’s where all these problems start.”
What particular challenges did you face with this film,
Alejandro?
Inarritu: “There were several at different stages.
I think the fact of pulling all these diverse elements together,
to bring them into one single film was the most scary thought
that I had when I made all the decisions. I was very aware
of the danger of ending up with four short pieces, four films
that would not be related to one another, that all these
diverse elements would create something that would not be
congruent. Obviously the challenge was how to pull together
these pieces through the emotion within them, through themes
more than plot and physical joints, which sometimes people
don’t understand and criticise. But I think this is
a film that you can’t approach intellectually and ask
about the academic structure or plots – act one, act
two, act three. So beyond the logistical, emotional, physical
and intellectual challenges, the most difficult thing in
the end is how in two hours you can make a translation in
a universal language and find the grammar of the film that
will speak to everybody.”
Do you find the real shape of the film comes together in
the editing of it?
Inarritu: “Yeah, in the editing you discover some
of those ideas, deciding to cut from here to here. For instance
the chicken running intercut with the woman running, I said
it was too obvious. Or the kids running in the desert and
the kids running in the kitchen, things like that. Sometimes
you want to play with that kind of thing. Sometimes it’s
cheesy, sometimes it works, sometimes not, so I have another
idea. But obviously with every frame a decision is made with
a purpose, I don’t leave one frame without it being
there for a reason. Every single one is a moral decision.
Sometimes people get it sometimes they don’t, but that’s
the magic of cinema.”
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