Summary
Richard goes to Susan, who tells him, "If I die, you take care of the kids. Especially Mike, he really needs you...Don't you ever leave them again." Then she tells him that she peed her pants and they laugh sadly. When she tells him she has to pee again, Richard asks the man in the room if there's a pan they can use. He puts the pan underneath Susan and props her up to pee. He kisses her as she does and she laughs, but her laughter turns to sobbing.
"Forgive me, my love. When Sammy died, I didn't...I ran," Richard says. She agrees that it was a scary moment and processes the guilt she feels about the loss. The scene shifts and Richard speaks on the phone to someone from the embassy who apologizes to Richard and tells him that the government "refused to acknowledge that this was an act of terrorism." He tells Richard that they didn't want to send a Moroccan ambulance given the political climate surrounding the event. He tells Richard that a helicopter will arrive soon and Richard is impatient.
In Tokyo, Detective Mamiya comforts Chieko and tells her she does not need to apologize for her sexual forwardness. She writes on a pad, folds up the paper and hands it to Mamiya. When he tries to open it, she stops him and puts it in his pocket. He wipes away her tears and says goodbye.
We see Amelia at the police station. "It's a miracle we found those kids, ma'am. I don't know how you could have left them alone like that out in the desert," a police officer says. She asks after them and he tells her it's none of his business. "I raised these kids since they were born," Amelia says, "Mike and Debbie are like my own children." The police officer is unsympathetic, telling her that they are not her children, and that she has been working in the United States illegally.
Amelia asks about Santiago, but the officer has no information on him, before telling her that they spoke to Richard, who was very angry but will not be pressing charges. He then tells her that they will be deporting her, and she pleads with him that she has lived in the States for 16 years. She asks to speak to a lawyer, but he tells her that if she takes it to court, she will just be "prolonging the inevitable." Amelia sobs.
In Morocco, Yussef watches as the policemen carry Ahmed's body away. We see a flashback of Yussef and Ahmed standing in the strong wind and laughing together. Then the scene shifts and we see a helicopter arrive to pick up Susan. Richard tries to pay the Moroccan man who hosted them while they were there, but the man refuses.
The helicopter flies the couple to a hospital in Casablanca, where an American assures the press that they are on the hunt for whoever did this to Susan. At the hospital, a doctor tells Richard that they have to operate and that she will probably be alright. Richard calls Amelia and they have the conversation that we heard Amelia having at the beginning of the movie. Richard cries as he speaks to his son on the phone.
In Tokyo, we see Chieko's father arriving at home. He runs into Detective Mamiya in the lobby, but does not recognize him. When the doorman introduces the two men, Mamiya asks Chieko's father if he owns the rifle that was used by Yussef to shoot Susan. "He was a good guide and a very good man, I gave him the rifle in thanks," he tells Mamiya. He asks Chieko's father if he will come to the station the next day. Before Chieko's father goes upstairs, Mamiya tells him that he spoke to Chieko about her mother's suicide, the fact that she jumped from the balcony. Chieko's father looks upset and says, "My wife never jumped off a balcony. She shot herself in the head. My daughter was the first to find her. I've explained it to the police many times. Don't bother us with that anymore."
Mamiya goes to a bar and drinks heavily, before reading Chieko's note, which we cannot read. On the news, he sees that Susan is returning home from Morocco.
In his apartment, Chieko's father finds his daughter nude on the balcony looking out at the city. She takes her father's hand, hugs him, and weeps.
Analysis
In this final section, we learn more about the intricacies of Richard and Susan's relationship. In her moment of injury, lying on the floor of the house in Morocco, Susan must ask for help from Richard, a vulnerable dynamic that they have not felt since his apparent affair. In this complicated moment, Richard apologizes and explains to her that he strayed from their relationship out of fear after they lost their infant child. The trauma of Susan's injury brings the couple together in an unexpected way.
The film shows how the effects of xenophobia and cultural biases, and the ways that these prejudices are politicized, are often contradictory. When Richard speaks to a man from the American embassy in Morocco, the man tells him that help has been delayed because the Moroccan government has refused to acknowledge the shooting of Susan as a terrorist act. The viewers know that the shooting was an accident, not an act of terrorism, so it is starkly evident that this political rhetoric and disagreement is completely for naught. The fact that the embassy is unable to send speedy help to Susan and Richard because of a disagreement about how the shooting is being framed because of xenophobic perceptions of the Moroccan people highlights the ways that the politicization of cultural difference is more harmful than helpful.
The contradiction between how the state views cultural and racial difference and the emotional reality of human experience is also brought into stark relief in the story of Amelia. While the viewer has had a window into her intimate and maternal relationship with Debbie and Mike, and the fact that she is raising them for Susan and Richard, who can afford to have near-constant childcare, the state just sees her as a negligent Mexican woman who left two white children in the desert. The lack of understanding in the treatment of Amelia's case mirrors the way that the American government refuses to send care to Susan for fear of Moroccan hostility. Babel suggests that for the American state, fear of non-white people is stronger than a desire to help and care for citizens.
The structure of the film is nonlinear, which makes its dramatic weight all the more intense. For instance, when Richard arrives in Casablanca, he calls Amelia and we hear his end of the conversation we heard Amelia having earlier. Seeing this conversation again, on the heels of seeing how Amelia's fate unfolds, is devastating, because we know that the tragedy of Susan's injury is only followed by the tragedy that occurs in Mexico and Amelia's eventual deportation. Iñárritu structures the film in such a way that the different features of the plot fit together in devastating ways.
The film ends on a bittersweet and ambiguous note. The respective stories resolve themselves to a certain extent—Chieko expresses her vulnerability to her father, Susan returns home, Amelia is deported—but it is not a happy or a clear ending. The interconnectedness of the different stories does not somehow tie itself up in a tidy way, but is more atmospheric, leaving the viewer to make of these connections and accidents what they will. The ending is more of a mournful embrace than a triumphant resolution.
