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F resh from a triumphant screening of his new film Babel at the Toronto Film Festival, acclaimed Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 43, sat down with RalphLauren.com to talk about working with stars Brad Pitt and Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, shooting on three continents in six languages, and the effect that making this, his third film, has had on his life. Explaining why he dedicated the film to his two children, he admits, “Babel no longer answers the question it did when I started of, ‘Where am I from?’ but rather it now tells me where I am heading.”
With buzz building, one place he could well be heading is the Oscars. Although named Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the intense Inarritu cannot believe he and his movie are now being touted as frontrunners for Academy Award nominations. His surprise at such success is understandable, given that he did not make his first film, Amores Perros, till he was 37 after successful careers as a composer and a television producer. Winning over critics and audience alike with an audacious shifting of time to tell seemingly unrelated stories that are really intertwined, he then made the similarly styled 21 Grams in English, which earned Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro Oscar nominations.
RalphLauren.com: How would you describe Babel?
Inarritu: While it might seem complicated, raising social and political questions on a global scale, at its heart it is simply four stories about parents and children—an American couple, a Mexican mother and her son, a Moroccan family, and a Japanese father and daughter. Their lives intersect because of a single act—a tourist in Morocco leaves behind a hunting rifle.
RalphLauren.com: What can you tell us about each of these storylines?
Inarritu: From the outside, the American couple gets lost in the desert; in reality, they are a lost couple who find one another in their loneliness. The story of the Moroccan children is about the moral breakdown of a highly spiritual Muslim family—when values crumble nothing makes sense anymore. The Mexican nanny working in California cannot communicate her desire for a better life, while the deaf teenage Japanese girl can only express herself physically.
RalphLauren.com: What inspired you to spend three years making this movie?
Inarritu: I needed to purge myself, to speak about my self-imposed exile from Mexico, about being a Third World citizen living in a First World country. I wanted to talk about issues we must all face—immigration and the clash between East and West—and I decided to look at these large-scale problems through these intimate stories.
RalphLauren.com: Why was it so important for you to spend many months in each of the locations before filming began?
Inarritu: I did not want to be the outsider telling their stories because that dilutes the audience’s connection with these characters. So, I started this process of observe and absorb. That is why I used so many non-actors. I wanted to learn from them, to have them show me reactions to the situations in the film that would be real.
RalphLauren.com: What were you most surprised to learn?
Inarritu: I discovered that our differences do not stem from our different languages but from our points of view of the world. We have borders within ourselves as much as the ones between countries. We all have issues with those who are different from ourselves.
RalphLauren.com: Why were Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett your first and only choices for their roles?
Inarritu: Brad is the all-American male and I thought it important to see that icon faced with trouble in a Muslim country in today’s world. He hasn’t done this type of role before and I was excited to transform him into a middle-aged man in crisis. And Cate has such a range and scale that I knew she could deliver. The audience has to care about her, and Cate, who so clearly reveals her soul, her interior life, can create this empathy. I relied on her to sustain the gravity of the story.
RalphLauren.com: What was it like to reunite with your two stars of Amores Perros on Babel?
Inarritu: Adriana [Barraza] has that quality of unconditional maternal love. Every movement, every gesture and look was incarnate with the tenderness and complexity of her character. And Gael [Garcia Bernal] had been on my mind since I first thought of the story. I could not end this trilogy without him. He’s one of my favorite actors in the world and I knew he could subtly portray the complicated nature of his character.
RalphLauren.com: How difficult was it to make this movie, your most ambitious one so far?
Inarritu: Essentially, we made four different movies, trying to penetrate four different cultures. Communication was not easy on this film, which was created by hundreds of people from different parts of the world. There were six languages used, including signing. While it was very challenging logistically—for example, I had not cast any of the parts in Morocco two weeks before filming began—it was more difficult intellectually and emotionally. I realized what makes us happy can differ greatly, but what makes us miserable is the same for us all—the inability to love and be loved.
RalphLauren.com: Were Brad and Cate wary of working with the non-professionals you cast in Morocco?
Inarritu: Not at all—without their patience, I would never have survived. Brad and I have wanted to work together for five years. Beyond being an incredible actor, he is a wonderfully giving person. And Cate, who resisted playing the part, gives a great performance. There is no other actor who could do what she does. Directing actors is always difficult and directing actors in a language other than your own is more so. But, directing non-actors in a language you don’t understand was the greatest challenge I have ever faced and I am so pleased with what the Moroccans did.
RalphLauren.com: That is what your films do—bring seemingly disparate people together. Can you compare Babel to your first two films?
Inarritu: Amores Perros had a Mexican point of view while 21 Grams was told from an American one. Babel is on a global scale. All of them tell overlapping stories without regard for chronology about parents and children. Finding the title for this film put everything into perspective. That one word—‘Babel’—captures the whole complexity of human communication. The Biblical story made so much sense as a metaphor for the film. Each of us has our own different language, but I believe we all share the same spiritual spine.
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