Interconnectedness
One of the central themes of the film is interconnectedness: the premise that from one innocent act, a chain of cataclysmic events can follow, and that they can be connected in unexpected ways.
A Japanese businessman gives a hunting rifle to his Moroccan tour guide as a simple thank-you. This innocent gesture is paid forward when the Moroccan man sells it to his neighbor to defend his goats from the local jackal population. When the goat herder asks his sons to protect the herd, they get bored and start shooting at rocks to see if the gun really does have the distance and range their neighbor claimed, and in a blink of an eye, change their fates forever by accidentally shooting a woman in a passing tour bus.
An international scandal occurs, with talk of terrorism flooding the news. Meanwhile, the Japanese businessman is suspected of arms dealing in relation to the incident, and the American tourist and her husband are delayed in Morocco. This leaves their children's nanny unable to leave in time for her son's wedding, so she decides to go anyway with the children in tow. After an altercation with border patrol agents after the wedding, the nanny finds herself being brought in for questioning and getting deported to Mexico, her life ruined.
Iñárritu structures the film in such a way that viewers slowly learn about the connection between the gift of the rifle and the ultimate deportation of the Mexican nanny. In weaving together these events, Iñárritu shows that there is no such thing as an inconsequential small act because our actions always have consequences. Each random decision or action causes another, and another, and eventually a chain of events builds up. In this way, human beings are interconnected.
Breakdowns in Communication
Two of the sets of protagonists in the film are experiencing a breakdown in communication.
Richard and Susan Jones are not dealing well, if at all, with their grief following the death of their third child, from S.I.D.S. They are grieving inwardly, rather than together. They cannot express their feelings, and possibly cannot interpret them for themselves, let alone share them with one another. This turns to anger and hostility until all beneficial and positive communication has broken down.
A similar experience is happening in Japan, where Chieko and her father are barely communicating after the death of Chieko's mother. Chieko literally struggles with communication because she is a deaf-mute, but she also is unable to express her grief to her father in an emotionally honest way. Their inability to communicate leads Chieko to act out, until suddenly this gives way and she finally connects with her father about their shared loss.
Grief
Both the Jones couple and Chieko and her father are grieving recent losses. Their grief is something they struggle to process, or share with each other. Susan and Richard have come to Morocco in order to try to repair their relationship, which has deteriorated largely because of their grief. They cannot share with each other what they are feeling and so withdraw. Chieko is grieving by acting out, behaving provocatively, and becoming sexually aggressive.
Additionally, we see young Yussef grieve the loss of his brother Ahmed in the shootout with the police. His innocent game with his beloved brother has turned into a much more horrible scenario, and he must come to terms with his accidental crime at the exact same moment that he realizes his brother has died because of it.
Finally, Amelia is happy for most of the film, until a tragic chain of events leads to her deportation. She sobs to the border patrol agent about how connected she feels to her American charges, and the roots she has put down in the United States. Her anguish at having to uproot her life in spite of being a committed and loving person is her own form of grief.
International Relations
The situation in Morocco is made significantly worse by the fact that relations between the United States and Morocco are tense and difficult at the time of the incident. Following the shooting of Susan, the American government assumes that the shot was an aggressive act of terror. As a result, members of the American embassy do not want to send a Moroccan ambulance, but this delays Susan's pickup. We see that xenophobia and assumptions about Moroccan aggression by the authorities make the lives of Richard and Susan even harder.
We also see the ways that international relations complicate matters in Amelia's storyline. She is without a substitute babysitter, but she understandably wants to attend her son's wedding, so brings her two charges with her. The two children have a good time, and remain unscathed by their visit to a more "dangerous" country, but things get complicated when they reach the border and must interact with an aggressive and evidently racist patrol agent. The concerns of the state supersede the stakes that are at play on a human level. Characters become defined negatively by their race and by stereotypes about their culture rather than by their actions and what they can actually offer.
Accidents
The film examines the intentionality of people's actions, and the ways that large scale and negatively impactful events can be rooted in innocent mistakes or misguided accidents. This is perhaps most evident in Yussef and Ahmed's storyline. While they know the consequences of shooting a gun, they are young boys and do not take into consideration what would happen if they shot a rifle at a passing bus. They are not aware of what consequences their actions will have, so when Yussef actually hits someone with his rifle, his accident sets a dramatic sequence of events into motion. The entire conflict of the film is motored by an accident.
Additionally, Amelia's deportation, a life-changing situation that causes her much grief, is the consequence of an accident. While she had believed that she could easily take the Jones' children to the wedding in Mexico and bring them home that night, the animosity that is stirred up between her and the border patrol agent comes as a result of Santiago's recklessness and the patrol agents' distrust of her story. When Mike asks her in the desert if she is bad, she assures him she is not, but that she "just did something stupid." In Babel, small mistakes can be devestating.
Love
Love is a major theme in the film. In spite of all the grief and anguish that the characters are experiencing, they are also redeemed by their love for one another and the solace they find in their connection to each other. Susan and Richard's marriage has fallen apart after the death of their child, but in the midst of Susan's recovery, they connect about their trauma and are able to rekindle their affection for one another. Chieko goes looking for solace from her grief through sexual connection, but it is the love that she has for her father that ultimately allows her to feel and begin to release from her grief. Amelia loves the Jones children almost as much as if they were her own children, so she finds her deportation all the more devastating. Finally, Yussef feels love for his brother Ahmed, after Ahmed is shot and killed he is devestated, even though they have always had a contentious and competitive fraternal relationship.
Inequality
We see inequality at play in different ways throughout the film. Susan's attitude towards Morocco is skeptical and repelled, largely because it does not meet the standards set by her affluent life in the United States. She complains about the fatty foods and is scared to drink the water, and we see that she has a prejudiced attitude towards the country because of her perception of its resources and the fact that it is not modern or wealthy.
Amelia, an undocumented Mexican woman, is the victim of prejudice and structural inequality when she is stopped trying to cross the border back into the United States. The border agents treat her disrespectfully, and do not believe her when she tells them she is in charge of the Jones children.
In subtle ways, the film seeks to show how xenophobia and racial bias pull people apart and create inequality in the broader global system. While people may be connected to each other in unexpected ways, the ways different people are treated, depending on the context, their race, or the background, is often inconsistent and unequal.
