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Byline: Caroline Palmer
Inside a cavernous restaurant at a New York hotel, the young Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi sits in a corner politely cooling herself with a wide black fan. Flanked by a translator and her manager, the 25-year-old wears a black lace Chanel dress draped over skinny jeans and Gucci heels. As she speaks about Babel, her latest project-21 Grams director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's commanding, and tragic, tale of intersecting lives and global fracture-her serious demeanor gets broken, only briefly, by bright peals of unexpected laughter.
Kikuchi plays Chieko, a deaf-mute student in Tokyo grappling with her mother's recent suicide and a newfound desire to push past the boundaries of childhood. From naively taunting boys with her short skirt to ending up overwhelmed in a club where everyone is dancing to a beat she cannot hear, the actress lends the character an adolescent vulnerability that is almost painful to watch. Like a sponge, her Chieko soaks up new surroundings and situations, her face filling with animation and ...