Summary
Morocco. Ahmed and Yussef run with their herd of goats back home. Their mother confronts them for being home and Yussef tells her that they both have stomach aches. "The goats will die if they do not eat," she says, and instructs them to do their other chores.
Yussef and Ahmed do their chores, as Abdullah returns home. They stare at him somberly and he tells them to instruct their mother to prepare dinner. As they eat, Abdullah asks the boys if they killed any jackals and they tell him they shot at the jackals but did not kill any. "Why did you come home late?" the boys' mother asks Abdullah and he tells her that the road was closed; "Apparently some terrorists killed an American tourist," he adds. Yussef and Ahmed look at each other, and Yussef asks how they know if the American died. "That's what they were saying. The police are looking for the culprits," Abdullah says.
Santiago drives Amelia and the children across the Mexican border. "You see how easy it is to get into paradise?" Santiago says, and Mike says, "My mom tells me that Mexico is really dangerous." We see flashes of Mexican food and businesses, as the two blonde children look out the window.
They arrive at the venue for Amelia's son's wedding in Tijuana, where they are greeted warmly by family. She introduces the kids to Lucio, another kid who is going to take care of them. They go with Lucio as Amelia puts on her dress for the wedding, which she hasn't worn in 15 years. Her daughters notice a rip in the dress and laugh at her, without telling her what they are laughing at.
Debbie and Mike play in a pen with Mexican children who play a game trying to catch a chicken. Debbie picks up the chicken joyfully, winning the game. Later, Mike holds a chicken then gasps as Santiago breaks the chicken's neck.
In the Morocco timeline, we see Richard laying Susan down in the aisle and calling to see if there is a doctor on the bus. A Moroccan man on the bus tells them that the hospital is four hours away, but that there is a clinic an hour and a half away. Suddenly, Richard sees a car approaching and asks it to stop. The man speaks Arabic and drives away, so the bus driver starts to drive.
The Moroccan man tells Richard they can take Susan to his town, where there is a doctor, and Richard agrees. The tourists look out the window as the bus arrives in the town. Richard carries Susan to the doctor's home and lays her down on the ground. Richard tells them that they need to get an ambulance, and wants to call the American embassy. Richard goes to make the call, leaving Susan alone, even though she begs him not to go. He calls an old woman over to tends to Susan's wound, putting pressure on it.
As he leaves the house, another tourist tells Richard that in a small town in Egypt, people slit a bunch of German tourists' throats, and some other passengers tell him that they have to leave. Richard begs them not to go yet and goes to call the embassy. Richard calls Rachel, Susan's sister, to tell her that Susan has been shot and asks her to call the embassy and tell them they're in Tazarine, in the desert.
The doctor goes to see Susan and examines her wound, saying that the bullet did not hit her spine, but that if she stays like this, she will bleed to death. When Richard asks the Arabic man to translate, the man says that she will be fine, but Richard can tell he's lying, and asks him to tell the truth. The doctor says he has to sew up the wounds to stop the bleeding, and Susan begins to panic. Richard asks what kind of doctor he is, and the man tells him he's a veterinarian, but he is good, as the doctor says that Susan's clavicle is broken. The Arabic man translates. Susan doesn't want them to operate, but Richard insists, as the doctor begins to sew up her wound and she screams.
We see Chieko in the waiting room to see her dentist. There is no sound, to signify her deafness, and as the secretary calls to her, she doesn't notice for a moment. In the dentists office, the dentist tells her she has two cavities. Abruptly, Chieko kisses him as he's examining the inside of her mouth. He ignores it and continues, but she licks him and guides his hand towards her crotch area. "What's wrong with you!" he exclaims, then tells her to leave.
Chieko walks home to her apartment building, where two men confront her in the lobby. They tell her they are Yoshjo Hamano and Kenji Mamiya from the Metropolitan Police. "We would like to see your father," they tell her, and she takes out a pad and pen and writes a message asking if it's something bad. When they ask if she knows where her father is, she shakes her head and they hand her a card with a number for him to call.
Chieko goes upstairs and enters her apartment, where she finds a note from her father: "Chieko, I waited for you. I have a meeting so I'll be back late. I left you a bento box in the fridge." She video chats with her friend before lying on her bed and watching television. On the news is the story about Susan, and a picture of Yussef flashes across the screen, before Chieko changes the channel.
Eventually, Chieko's friend comes over and they prepare to go out. Her friend notices the card the cops gave her, and Chieko tells her, "They hadn't come in 9 months, but these were different cops." The friend asks if they are asking about her mother's death, and suggests that they will not believe the circumstances surrounding it. Chieko smiles and tells her friend that she was attracted to one of the cops and they laugh. Chieko lifts up her skirt to reveal that she is still not wearing underwear.
We see Yussef and Ahmed walking through the desert with the rifle, and hiding it in a small cave, covering it with brush.
Policemen arrive at the scene of Susan's shooting and question the man that Richard tried to flag down about the incident. Another policemen finds cartridges on the hillside, which they trace back to Hassan. The cops intimidate Hassan and his wife, holding a gun up to his head and ordering him to fall to the ground. They question him about shooting at the bus, but Hassan insists that he did not do it, and tells them about the sale made to Abdullah.
The cops approach Yussef and Ahmed on the road and ask where Abdullah lives. Yussef lies and tells them that Abdullah lives on the other side of the mountain, but the cops says, "If you're lying, I'm going to come back and cut your balls off." Yussef says, "You can come back anytime you like," and the cops drive away.
The boys run to their father and tell him that the cops are looking for them. They tell their parents the whole story and Ahmed outs Yussef as the one who killed the American tourist, before adding that he spies on Zohra, the street girl, when she's naked. Yussef hits him and they fight.
Analysis
The film examines the ways that an accident can turn into a much larger misunderstanding. As we watch Abdullah eat dinner with his family, we know that not only did his two sons leave the rifle he just bought on top of a nearby hill, but that they are the ones who shot at the tour bus earlier that day. Abdullah heard the rumor that some terrorists killed a tourist, but we have the privileged information that it was his own two sons doing his bidding. This particular dramatic irony is excruciating, in that we know that it was not a terrorist attack at all, but a misguided childish mishap.
Iñárritu shoots the film in a starkly realistic visual style. The settings, diverse as they are, are each shot with the same care and great detail. From the teenage-filled restaurant in Tokyo to the deserts of Morocco to the fancy living room in San Diego, the film takes a restrained look at each of these locations, mining them for their respective authentic rhythms. The realism of the film only makes its drama that much more absorbing, as we piece together the disparate stories being told and try to find the thread of humanity weaving them together.
In this section of the film, we see the stark and awkward contrast between the monied white characters and the comparatively impoverished foreign countries they navigate. Both Susan and her children are shocked by the brutality of the world outside of their bubble. Susan is rude about the menu at a restaurant and maintains a snobbish attitude towards the conditions. Debbie and Mike are alternately delighted and horrified by Tijuana, especially Santiago's beheading of a chicken and the general unknownness of the place. Iñárritu shoots the lily white faces of the Jones' in close up as they find themselves alienated by their surroundings, at once aligning the viewer with their state of mind and showing the ways that their views are prejudiced by the narrowness of their experience.
The film is promiscuous in regards to whom it asks the viewer to empathize with, switching rapidly between different perspectives. One moment we are asked to empathize with Richard and Susan's plight, their terror at needing intensive medical care in a small village in the Middle East, the next we are shown that the Moroccans who are trying to help are well-intentioned. One moment we see Amelia's dismay at not being able to find someone to watch the Jones children for her son's wedding, the next we are aligned with the children's discomfort in being brought to a new place. Iñárritu's interest in exploring various perspectives is on full display in the scene in the dental waiting room. As Chieko waits for her appointment, the camera moves around showing various people chatting, but with no sound. We are inside Chieko's head, experiencing her deafness first hand, and the alienating implication her disability has had on her life.
The film is told in a non-linear way. For instance, the story of Yussef and Ahmed is behind in time, while the story of Chieko seems to be furthest along in time. Little cues connect these stories and give us hints about where in the chronology we are. For instance, we see a scene in which Chieko flips through the channels and sees Yussef's face on the screen, the face of Susan's shooter. Then, in the next scene, Yussef and Ahmed try to hide their crime from the cops. The film follows a jumbled but cohesive structure, one that only further connects all of the various plotlines.
