Building Babel

Director David Osit's fly-on-the-wall documentary centers on Sharif El-Gamal, a New York City real estate developer whose intention to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan—two blocks from Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center collapsed following the 9/11 terrorist attack—caused local outrage. While El-Gamal is portrayed as a well-meaning and even affable philanthropist determined to stop the demonizing of Muslims in America, his harshest critics here regard him as tone deaf and insensitive to the pain of New Yorkers who lost loved ones on 9/11 (the fact that those naysayers are stereotyping an entire group of people as an enemy is an irony that is lost on them). Shot over two years, Building Babel captures the long process of moving this quixotic project along at its creator's mounting expense—despite facing official and unofficial obstacles—and it reflects El-Gamal's mood swings throughout, from hope to despair. We see him pray with his family, hold press conferences, deal with his wife's ambivalence, chide an imam for grandstanding during a meeting, and constantly talk to the media, which has a field day after El-Gamal's troubled youth is revealed. “Our community is closeted; we're not practicing being good Americans,” says El-Gamal at one point. Building Babel powerfully illustrates why that practice is so hard. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)