Babel (English, Spanish, Japanese, DVD)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won the prize for Best Director at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for this powerful multi-narrative drama set in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo. A young American couple, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett), go to Morocco on holiday to restore their fragile relationship following the death of one of their children. However, they are catapulted into disaster when a rogue gunshot fired by a Moroccan farmer's young son brings Susan to the brink of death. Meanwhile, the couple's other two children have been left at home in San Diego in the care of their housekeeper Amelia (Adriana Barraza), who cannot find anyone to mind the children while she attends her son's wedding across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. She decides to take them with her, a decision that nearly costs all three their lives. In the third storyline, set in Tokyo, a teenage deaf-mute rebel, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), is reeling after the apparent suicide of her mother. Her attention-seeking behaviour makes her increasingly vulnerable, but can she attract the attention of the person she feels most isolated from: her father? The implications of language, whether unspoken or misunderstood, are the recurring theme in this set of interlocking tales of love, prejudice and the connections between us all.