Factual error: You can see on the text message "20h48." But she receives this message during the afternoon (the time is incorrect). (00:27:35)
Babel (2006)
1 factual error - chronological order
Directed by: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alejandro G. Inarritu
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mohamed Akhzam, Peter Wight
Genres: Drama
Audio problem: When the large guy from the tour bus asks Brad Pitt if his wife is ok (when Brad was walking down the stairs at the village), Brad answers without moving his mouth.
Yussef: I killed the American, I was the only one who shot at you. They did nothing... nothing. Kill me, but save my brother, he did nothing... nothing. Save my brother... he did nothing.
Question: At the hospital, Brad Pitt calls home and speaks to the caretaker. I thought she was already deported to Mexico. He tells her someone is coming to relieve her and she will be free to go to the wedding. I don't get the timeline here.
Answer: At the start there are 2 phone calls from Richard to Amelia (the nanny). The first call is him saying Rachel is on her way to relieve her, Susan is in surgery and please don't tell the kids what's happened. This is the same call from the very end of the movie where he is in the hospital and Susan is in surgery. Not long after we see the first call, we see Amelia receive a second phone call from Richard, saying "Rachel can't get there, we need you to stay the night." Amelia protests saying "but it's my sons wedding" and Richard says "I will pay for him to have another wedding, we are relying on you we need you to stay" and hangs up. This view of Amelia's timeline from the start of the film, before she takes the kids to Mexico and everything unfolds for her in the desert, is happening AFTER everything we see from Richard's perspective. Whilst it jumps around between characters, it is clear that each character's timeline is chronological to itself, and does ACTUALLY happen.
Answer: At the end Pitt is talking on the phone to his kids, which you saw from the kids' perspective at the start of the movie, then after that the nanny takes them to the wedding. So the wedding and aftermath is happening while Pitt and wife are in hospital in Morocco. Hope it helps.
I still don't understand if Amelia was deported or not. Like someone already said, Brad told her someone would be there soon.
Yes...the terrible treatment of the border agent suggested that she'd immediately be deported...yet, during the phone call with the American father we hear both Amelia and the two kids...such suggests that-for now, alt least-she's still in the States.
Answer: I think the message at the beginning is different as he has no-one to care for the kids. In the replay at the end he says Rachel will sort out the kids. I need to listen more closely to the two messages - the were both mumbled like actors in US movies seem to do, annoyingly. I feel that the film is showing what could have happened to the kids.
I've put a complete answer attached to the main thread for you. But no it's not showing what could've happened, it's showing what did happen. The call brad Pitt makes at the end of the film is the very first call we see Amelia get at the start. Then a bit later she gets another call saying "Rachel can't get there" and then the Mexico part of the timeline unfolds. Chronologically this happens after the final scene with brad Pitt at the end of the film in the hospital.
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Answer: The scenes are out of chronological order - Richard called Rachel, Susan's sister, to tell her Susan has been shot. He calls Amelia, the nanny, who already knows about the shooting from Rachel, and tells her that Rachel will find someone to mind the kids. He rings later and tells her to cancel the wedding as they are still in Morocco and Rachel could not find a replacement. All this takes place before she takes the kids to Mexico and is deported.
Sierra1 ★
So did Amelia go Mexico or was that just a dream, because Brad never finds out about that and the kids missing along with Amelia?
Everything happens, but in different times. When you see Brad Pitt on the phone, that is the phone call the nanny was receiving in the beginning of the movie, before she got ready for the wedding.