BABEL: No one to blame but destiny and, of course, stupid Americans.

String together a handful of stories, contrive a semblance of irony and fate with artificial connections, inject innocuous liberal sentiments, and you’ve got Oscar nominations, à la last year’s Crash. So goes Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film. A couple of kids in Morocco get hold of a Japanese guy’s rifle and pop an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) arguing with her husband (Brad Pitt) on a bus while back home their children go on a wild ride with their illegal immigrant housekeeper. Such is life. And really, there’s no one to blame but destiny and, of course, stupid Americans. Of more interest than the specious plotting and politics is the filmmakers’ thing about incest and voyeurism; they seem to have concocted the whole Tokyo episode to get comely actress Rinko Kikuchi out of her clothes.

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