The film Babel portrays both the lyrical and the grotesque literary elements in its contrast of interpersonal war/war/peacetime and self-perfection via education and training. The lyrical element of the movie centers on the deep emotion evoked by the scene in which Brad Pitt's character desperately tries to save his wounded wife, and the one in which the wife, played by Cate Blanchett, worries about what will happen to her children if she dies. Also lyrical is the crushing rejection of the deaf-mute Japanese girl when her bid to seduce the policeman is rebuffed. The grotesque is embodied in the continual but largely accidental missteps and tragic events in the movie, from the small(the maid taking the children to her son's wedding(to the large(the wounding of Cate Blanchett's character. These events suggest that life is a series of unfortunate accidents that all compound upon each other to create tragedy.
In the film, the theme of interpersonal battle is placed in a wartime setting that reinforces the message of conflict and contrasted against peace, which is tremendously restorative and life-giving. The issue of perfecting the self through education and training seems to suggest that through self-perfection conflict can be avoided, or at least converted to peace. The hard misery of conflict and war are highlighted in the film, and the viewer becomes literally weary of them by the film's end and longs for peace and goodness.
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