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For Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, one of the biggest challenges when making Babel was the trying to coach A-listers Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett to fade away into their characters once the camera started rolling.
Babel is one of the big contenders at this year's Academy Awards, with the film in the running for a Best Picture prize, Inarritu nominated for Best Director and both Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
"Casting Pitt and Blanchett — although I had them in mind from the beginning — that was a challenge because I knew if the people weren't able to forget that they were looking at celebrities then the film would fail," the 43-year-old Mexican director said at the San Sebastian Film Festival last September.
He pointed out that he cast Pitt, whom he first met about five years ago when they did a jeans commercial together, because the actor has a magnetic power.
Fortunately — or unfortunately — the harsh reality of filming in a sub-Saharan climate made for a more authentic transition on the actor's part.
"It was a very intense process but the circumstances we were surrounded by were very similar to the subject matter. It was not a fancy shoot.
"I didn't have a single actor aside from Brad and Cate the day before we started shooting, so I started looking for actors on the street. To direct actors in another language is more difficult but to direct non-actors in different languages — and people who had never seen a camera before — that was crazy!"
Pitt and Blanchett play two middle-American tourists who are forced to experience Morocco outside of their guided bus tour when the latter is accidentally hit by a stray bullet from the rifle of two mischievous Moroccan kids.
Their lives are interwoven with that of a Mexican immigrant, Amelia (Barraza), who cares for Pitt and Blanchett's on-screen children while they are away.
Loosely linked to the Middle Eastern tragedy is the story of a Japanese father and his deaf-mute daughter Chieko (Kikuchi) struggling to communicate with each other.
The accidental shooting of Blanchett is immediately interpreted as a terrorist act by the American government, turning an accident into a major incident.
Inarritu, who shot to international fame directing Amores Perros and 21 Grams, explained how Babel uses this as a jumping point to explore the concept of borders. "It's about borders — the physical ones, and the ones that are within ourselves. But this time, I wanted it to be very subtle, like a perfume that is just floating around the people, given that they are not physically connected and do not meet each other."
Babel is also about politics, "misunderstanding, paranoia and protectionism", said Inarritu.
"When you travel in the world, you always see it from a car or a bus. But when you are exposed to reality, you feel threatened by these fears. You keep being told, by the government of your country and of the United States, that the level of anxiety should be this colour, and then tomorrow it's yellow, and the next day it's red.
He added: "It is about the fear of the other; you think because they are brown-skinned and because they are Muslim, they have to be dangerous. That's what the government is saying." - TODAY/so
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