It was somewhere near the end of "Crash" — at about the point where the troubled detective, the racist cop's partner, and the daughter of the store owner turn out to be preposterously linked — that I started to worry about the future of Robert Altman movies.

Of course, Altman had nothing to do with "Crash." But the director, who died last year at 81, was the master of the much-immitated technique of giving vibrant characters room to live and breathe within naturally unfolding, lightly connected story lines — think "Nashville," "Short Cuts" and last year's "Prairie Home Companion."

The future of Altmanesque filmmaking seemed rock solid in 1999, when Paul Thomas Anderson paid homage to Altman's multistory technique with "Magnolia." But something bad happened between "Magnolia" and 2005's "Crash": Altman-style films were largely supplanted.

In their place is the far less lackadaisical root-cause movie — a film that retains Altman's technique of telling interconnected stories, but links them through some kind of root problem, usually in the name of social consciousness. In the last few years, root causes have ranged from drugs ("Traffic") to oil ("Syriana") to fast food ("Fast Food Nation.")

The success or failure of root cause movies tends to depend on how heavy handedly they lay blame. "Crash," which won last year's Academy Award for best picture, is the worst of the genre (and the worst best picture winner in years) not only because of its hamfisted, bogus observations on race but because of the tortured connections it imposes on its characters to make its shallow points.

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POINTING FINGERS

This is all a long way of saying: I really wasn't looking forward to seeing "Babel," one of this year's best picture nominees. Besides descriptions of it as a kind of international "Crash," I was nervous about its titular reference to the Bible story about the creation of different languages.

I was afraid, basically, that "Babel" was a root-cause movie about language.

But it turns out "Babel" gets the Altmanesque approach to storytelling exactly right, and its intense, involving approach to root-cause filmmaking also protects it against one of the main criticisms of Altman movies — that they're so slow.

A look at the best-known root-cause movies makes it pretty clear when films in the genre do and don't work:

— "Traffic" (2000): No one is more responsible for the root-cause film than Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for his "Traffic" screenplay and went on to write and direct "Syriana."

"Traffic" succeeds because it presents its compelling, frustrating, brilliantly acted characters without judgments. A few moments hinted at a drug legalization agenda — as when a teenage addict said she had an easier time getting alcohol than drugs — but for the most part audiences were allowed to form their own opinions.

— "Syriana" (2005): "Syriana" lacked "Traffic's" humanity — its pace makes it hard to connect with characters — but at least it had something interesting to say about the flow of Middle Eastern oil, which Hollywood hadn't considered before in much depth.

— "Crash" (2005): I guess it's kind of a compliment that I can't think of another movie I hated more in the last few years. The movie's main point — everyone has prejudices — has occurred to every living creature over the age of six. So in the name of being provocative, or shocking, or something, "Crash" argues that those prejudices are constantly just below surface level for pretty much everyone, and that people will even kill one another with little or no provocation over their biases.

Sure, some people will. But everyone in Los Angeles?

That isn't even the biggest problem though. That would be the series of shoehorned, laughably concocted connections between characters, almost all of whom seem to be linked through the character played by Larenz Tate.

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LOOSE CONNECTIONS

Now, back to "Babel."

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga trust audiences to think for themselves. References to terrorism and immigration blend into the story to support plot twists rather than to force-feed us life lessons.

The characters are so compelling that you don't care how their stories connect, but when they ultimately do, the link feels uncontrived. It even works thematically with the film's look at globalization and dubious progress.

Was the root cause language, or a failure to listen? "Babel" is the kind of open-ended movie that lets you decide for yourself.

Altman's own "Prairie Home" was something of a root-cause film as well, but only in the most general sense. The film's root cause is death, and Altman knew there was no point railing against it.

His only small point, in the words of one character, is that it's not a tragedy when an old man dies.

It felt like a reassurance from the director himself, who died just month's after "Prairie Home's" release. The point is especially true when the old man's style of moviemaking is alive and well.

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asap contributor Tim Molloy is an editor on the AP's national desk.

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