The movie "Babel" with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett reminded me a great deal of "Crash" the Acadmemy Award winner of a couple years back.  The story is a series of interrelated stories- but the relationships are not clear at the beginning.  The other similarity is the depressing mood of the movie.

I loved "Crash" and thought it was much better than "Babel."  But "Babel" was good.

You remember from your Bible that the tower of Babel was built in an attempt to reach God.  God, so angered by the attempt destroyed the tower and made it so people could no longer understand one another (different languages).  While this is never mentioned in the movie, it is clearly the theme- how we can live together in the same world, the same country, the same house and not even begin to understand each other.

The movie did a good job of presenting the problems and identifying the things that separate us- culture, race, social standing, economics, age, physical abilities.

But there is another theme running in the film- the theme of loss.  There is a lost marriage, a lost opportunity, a lost dream, a lost parent and even some lost children (in more ways than one).

I wanted to see how the characters were changed by their experiences.  I wanted to see what happenend next, what they learned.  If I didn't beleive they changed it would be to depressing to bear.

Maybe that is the point.  DId you see the movie?  What do you think?