Archibaldo de la Cruz (Alonso) is a wealthy Mexican man. As a privileged child during the Mexican Revolution, he witnessed the death of his governess, who died as she told him a fable about a music box that his mother had just given him. Because of the contents of the story and the coincidental timing of the governess's death, a young Archibaldo concludes that he had killed the woman using the music box. It is from there that his desire to kill begins.
L'histoire d'un Indien qui donne sa vie pour l'amour d'une femme blanche, la confondant avec la Vierge Marie. Il lutte contre la société et les préjugés. Il croit qu'elle va l'épouser quand elle lui donne son mouchoir...
Valentín Bravo had been always a rather fearful child, afraid of everything from heights to spiders. His father, Juan "Johnny" Bravo, raised him trying to make him fearless by making a tarantula walk on Valentin and throwing him off a high oceanside cliff known as La Quebrada. When his father locked Valentín in a crypt at a cemetery, Valentín began to resent his father and ran away after stating that he no longer loves him.
Babel focuses on four interrelated sets of situations and characters, and many events are revealed out of sequence. The following plot summary has been simplified and thus does not reflect the exact sequence of the events on screen.
The film starts with a naked figure sitting in a tree in what looks like a mental asylum. Nurses come out to him, bringing a plate of conventional food and also one of a raw fish. As they try to coax him off of his perch, it is the fish that persuades him to come down. As the nurses get him to put on some overalls, the viewer sees that he has a tattoo of phoenix on his chest.
The film depicts a man who keeps his family isolated in his home for years to protect them from "the evil nature of human beings" while inventing, with his wife, rat poison.
La Manuela, un travesti homosexuel, et sa fille Japonesita, tiennent un bordel dans le petit village d'El Olivo, que le chef, Don Alejo, veut vendre. Pancho, l'ancien protégé du chef du village, revient à El Olivo. Ivre, Pancho révèle sa part d'homosexualité avec La Manuela.
The film revolves around a festival of mayordomía in the Mexican Oaxaca state, wich revolves around on something like the idea of "king for a day." When the town celebrates the feast day of its patron saint, the church appoints a layman as mayordomo or steward, an honor that in effect is gained by being able to organize and cover the high costs of most of the saint's local festivities. The post is however very coveted by the locals as it is socially prestigious.
Cantinflas se présente comme apprenti à l'école d'aviation, se joint à un autre inconnu et ils se confondent mutuellement comme des instructeurs, et par erreur sortent pour voler un avion déjà préparé pour battre un record de d'endurance dans l'air.
At a Christmas party, María Méndez (Dolores del Río) learns that Magdalena Mendez, her rich twin sister, had a very comfortable lifestyle, so she kills Magdalena and assumes her identity and lifestyle. However, her life becomes complicated by her late sister's sleazy boyfriend (Víctor Junco) and Roberto Gonzalez (Agustín Irusta), who loved the "dead" María.
Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo. He is separated from their mother Marambra, a woman suffering from alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business. Uxbal earns a living by procuring work for illegal immigrants and managing a group of Chinese women producing forged designer goods along with the African street vendors who are selling them. He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer leaving him with only a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart.
After fifteen years of military dictatorship but facing considerable international pressure, the public of Chile is asked by the government to vote in the national plebiscite of 1988 on whether General Augusto Pinochet should stay in power for another eight years or whether there should be an open democratic presidential election the next year.