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According to the Christian legend that inspired Babel, language is the barrier that keeps the world's masses from ascendancy. Handily the world also provides director Alejandro González Iñárritu with an epic stage to exercise his talent for multi-strand storytelling. Occasionally though it feels a little too scattered, so it doesn't pack as big of a punch as his last film 21 Grams. Still, this is an uncommonly raw and startling portrait of humanity with glittering performances all round.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett have one of the more gripping storylines as a US couple stranded in the Moroccan desert. A stray bullet leaves Susan teetering between life and death but it also exposes a festering wound in her marriage to Richard. The situation breeds a palpable urgency with Iñárritu's camera marking a quick passage of time as it bobs and weaves between them. Equally compelling are newcomers Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani as rival siblings playing with their father's gun when the accident happens.

"UNNECESSARILY CONVOLUTED"

When focus shifts to America, the tension sometimes dips. Adriana Barraza gives a heartfelt performance as the Mexican nanny caring for Richard and Susan's children, but her story doesn't take hold until the later stages when Gael García Bernal leads them into a run-in with the border police. Similarly the Japanese thread doesn't reveal much until the closing sequence despite Rinko Kikuchi's bold turn as a sexually precocious deaf-mute girl. Babel can be unnecessarily convoluted, ultimately though it's the stark simplicity of the dilemmas faced by each character that hits home, wherever that may be.