Question: Why did the Japanese girl lie about her mother jumping off the balcony? She'd probably have gained the same amount of sympathy from the officer if she had told him about finding her mother after she had shot herself. And why doesn't the father look more surprised that she's naked? He just blinks and hugs her?
Answer: It's obvious that this girl has quite serious psychological problems. Thus her erratic behavior, of which her father must also have some experience already.
Question: The last note, the folded one, that Chieko gives the detective to read later appears to be a lengthy one; is there any indication of its contents?
Answer: Wikipedia has this: (n.b., "(EDGE)" indicates the end of that particular line on the notebook page): . . . I wanted (EDGE) . . . myself (EDGE) . . . that's why (EDGE) . . . connected (EDGE) . . . that is (EDGE) . . . although I cannot (EDGE) . . . I have to find out (EDGE) . . . message from my mother (EDGE) . . . I was not sure if I was loved by my mother (EDGE) . . . but that's not the case . . . (EDGE) thank you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_(film).
Answer: It's a suicide note.
What is the basis of that conclusion?
Answer: Perhaps this is the clue we need. When reporting her mother's death in this way, she's actually reflecting her own plan. But wait do we know for a certainty that her deafness and muteness are congenital...or were they caused by the loss of her mother? Alternately, this condition might, essentially metaphorically, represent her great lack of contact with her father and others.
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: 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.
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.
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.
Answer: Chieko was traumatized by her mother's death (and feels a great need for physical contact and affection) (though she (mistakenly) manifests this in a sexual way...not too unusual in young disabled people). Her father seems to suffer from this same horrific loss, which means that they're both stuck in a kind of "loss-limbo" (unable to satisfy either's needs). On the balcony, the two holding hands suggests the beginning of the "breaking of the ice" between them. BTW, her nudity-in that scene-has no significance. This is just a father and his child. I wish the movie-makers had given us a clue about that damned note. Though the secrecy of it does kind've suggest that it reflects her intent to end her life...even as her mother did. Her appearance in the nude to the cop (which, on the face of it, seems very erotic) challenges us to remember that people exist on "different levels" or expressions (or "ego-states"). The main thing is that she's calling out for affection and being comforted.