The film Babel plays with time as a form through non-linear chronology. Babel focuses on an accident connecting four different scenarios. The movie opens with the first scenario set in Morocco of two brothers who unintentionally shoots and wounds an American tourist by testing a rifle. The second scenario involves the American woman, Susan, who was accidentally shot and her husband Richard who are traveling on a vacation. This situation is interrelated to the couple’s kids Debbie and Mike who are supervised under their nanny Amelia in San Diego, California. under a great dilemma and after much consideration, Amelia brings the kids to Mexico without Susan and Richard’s approval because she can’t miss her son’s wedding. The last scenario takes place in Japan, Wataya Chieko is a deaf yet rebellious teenager who resents her father mainly because of the recent suicide of her mother. Her father is connected to the other events because he gifted the gun to his hunting guide in Morocco who later sold it to the Moroccan boys’ father.
The film flips back and forth through the four different scenarios. This is because these events show how each of the events are connected or effecting each other. If the film played each scenario individually in chronological order, the viewer would be confused and have to reflect back on each scenario to understand the relations between them. Overall, the film’s placement of scenes is very clever and uses time as a form.
