‘Babel’ director wants to touch audiences

Mexican directors in the spotlight
But the Mexican influx to Hollywood isn’t limited to Inarritu collaborators. Directors Alfonso Cuaron (“Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”) and Guillermo Del Toro (“Hellboy,” “Mimic”) have also led the movement.

The three filmmakers have forged a well-known friendship and often screen early edits of their films for each other for advice. Cuaron and Del Toro also have films coming out this fall: “Children of Men” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” respectively.

“There’s nothing better than to share a common moment,” says Del Toro, who first met Inarritu after Cuaron passed on an early edit of “Amores Perros.” He called up Inarritu and told him flatly that his film was a masterpiece, but needed to be cut 20 minutes — forging a friendship of candor and support.

“The three of us share a level of passion and a hatred for institutions,” says Del Toro, laughing. “Though we defer on which institutions those are!”

Inarritu now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

“You become not from here, not from there. You become your own country in a way,” he says of his new home. “I define myself from a vision, from a point of view of life.”

The director is relieved to have completed “Babel,” which he compares to having birthed a four-headed monster. The initial rough cut of the film had to be whittled down from 4 1/2 hours. The production took place across Mexico, California, Tokyo and Morocco — and included many nonprofessional actors who spoke a number of languages.

The irony that those barriers of nationality and language could be crossed for “Babel” isn’t lost on Inarritu. For him, the film’s final shot — where two characters silently comfort each other by that same power of physical touch — is the symbol and hope of “Babel.”

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