After 16 nights, 130 shorts and 180 features, the 50th London Film Festival came to a close yesterday evening, as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel careered into the Odeon Leicester Square with one of its leading lights, Gael Garcia Bernal, in tow. Following the huge success of his previous two efforts, **Amores Perros **and 21 Grams, Inarritu's Babel continues the Mexican director's examination of human hardships that plague societies around the globe.
Focusing on four very distinct locations - Morroco, Japan, Mexico and Tunisia - Inarritu talked about how Babel fitted alongside his other movies and his relationship with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga: "Someone call it a trilogy of death. I hate that - it's a trilogy of life!" said the director. "My relationship with Guillermo has been so great over the last nine years I still want to explore it in many different ways. I have no idea why people have started talking about the relationship as if it's about to end."
Alongside Bernal, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett lead Babel's ensemble cast through some hideously tough situations: "It was extremely intense for them both" revealed Inarritu, "but we all got along very well and those tough moments in the film allowed them to really develop their characters. It was a great collaboration."
As an actor who has commented extensively on the portrayal of Mexicans in Hollywood, Gael Garcia Burnel - seemingly on mission to get the best seats n the house - had this to say: "Maybe [the image] is not always negative, but it is typical. In this movie, my character makes fun out of the Mexican stereotype - making fun out of himself". His director also revealed that a further collaboration between the two depended on Burnel getting some much needed driving lessons: "I would love to work with him again, but I'll never put him in a car. When he's driving a car he always creates an accident."
And finally, as the last guests dash into the cinema and the LFF banners are removed from their hordings, Inarritu decided to leave us with a few words of self-reflection: "I really don't like that pretentious word 'Auteur'. Film is such a collaborative art, but I suppose the director has to take ultimate responsibility...so everything that is bad in this movie - t's my fault! Oscar Wilde said, 'a pessimist is an optimist well nformed'. Well, I guess that's what I am."