Babylon
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films and to sound films in the late 1920s.
- Released: 2022-12-23
- Runtime: 188 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Stars: Diego Calva, Cici Lau, James Wellington, Trisha Simmons, Armando Cosio, Taylor Nichols, Todd Giebenhain, Bregje Heinen, Li Jun Li, Kaia Gerber, Frederick Koehler, Vanessa Bednar, Douglas Fruchey, Aurielle Simmons, Margot Robbie, Jimmy Ortega, Circus-Szalewski, Samara Weaving, Katia Gomez, Hayley Huntley
- Director: Damien Chazelle
Comments
- ata_f_b - 20 June 2024
Finally Hollywood
It was experience History of Cinema, there has never been like movie that explains cinema and Hollywood better. A movie where you can feel real cinema.
Movie starts with phenomenal party scene, we see different lives and levels in that party. It starts by focusing on our main 3 characters. One of the best actor in Hollywood(Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad), the other is woman(Margot Robbie as Nellie Laroy)is trying to become an actress, and the last character is a man (Diego Calva as Manny)who want to be in a cinema. Somehow these three people met someway. Nellie gets a role in a movie, Manny start work with Jack. And the Hollywood story of our character begins. And incredible scenes, colors and musics starting.
Babylon tells us how to sun sets on people. The meaning of the movie name(Babylon) is similar to the time action in movie. If you love cinema, this is a movie you should watch. - vincent0860712 - 9 May 2024
Problematic and understandably polarizing, but I ultimately liked it and found it brilliant at many moments
I consider myself a fan of writer/director Damien Chazelle, if not viewing him as one of my all-time favorites. Whiplash is among my Top 5 favorite movies of all time, La La Land is another favorite of mine I still adore after countless viewings, and while First Man was slightly disappointing it still had a lot of great elements to appreciate. (Still need his debut film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to be available on a streaming service or physical media here in Taiwan.....) Apart from the common theme of hardships during the pursuit of dreams which always resonates with me deeply, another characteristic of Chazelle's films that appeals to me is how his movies always impresses the most during the ending.
Despite the polarizing reception of the film, I was still interested in seeing Babylon. Apart from my love for Damien Chazelle as a director, I was also hooked by the premise being about the transition of Hollywood from silent films to sound films, aka talkies. (Singin' in the Rain, which depicts the same time period, is one of my all-time favorite movies.)
After finally seeing Babylon for myself, while it wasn't as great as I hoped, at the same time I found it to be better than reputed and don't think it deserves the overwhelming lambasting it got. Its technical aspects are done so well that even if the film didn't do much for me it would still get no lower than a 4/10, and legit effort will be made to recognize its positive aspects rather than focusing on its missteps and overlooking what it did right. As for how Babylon ranks among Damien Chazelle's previous films, I liked it slightly more than First Man without finding Babylon on par with the excellence of La La Land or Whiplash. In terms of 2022 releases, it is nowhere close of deserving to be called one of the worst films of 2022, while also falling short of being one of the best. As for how it compares to the other two 2022 "cinema love letter films" with Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans or Sam Mendes' Empire of Light, Babylon may be nowhere close to reaching the brilliance of The Fabelmans due to its frequent missteps, but Chazelle did manage to capture the magic of cinema fairly better than Mendes did with Empire of Light.
It's not hard to see why Babylon has divided critics and audiences and hasn't clicked with many, with one common aspect subject to criticism being towards the graphic content including the nudity, drug use, and gross-out humor. The opening scene in particular gives off a pretty bad first impression of what the film is actually about, which may rub off viewers the wrong way, myself included. I understand that Damien Chazelle was trying to use the graphic content in this film to highlight the glamor and excess in 1920s Hollywood, but I personally would have preferred to start off the film with something related to cinema history to set up the main story instead of beginning with a lowbrow joke that doesn't contribute to the main theme of the film. A little re-arranging of scenes would have certainly helped, probably by starting the film with a plot point near the end instead.
Many have raised complaints towards the massive three-hour runtime of Babylon, and while I personally wasn't bothered by the length, I can still see where the complaints are coming from. The film did manage to keep my attention throughout the majority of the film, but there were certain parts where I wished the movie would move on towards the next scene, particularly during the wild and reckless party scenes where I wanted the film to focus back on the filmmaking aspect of the story. The snake-wrestling scene in particular I found quite cringy to watch, even if the outcome of the scene did bring up an interesting issue that was left under-explored. Not helping the issue was the overstuffed plot with so many subplots that not all of them were developed properly, while the script also had some interesting themes that were briefly brought up but undercooked by the end. (Treatment of ethnic minorities, toxic working environments during early-day Hollywood, or cutting off ties with workers following personal controversies.)
With a huge cast of main characters, not all of them were able to be developed fully even with the massive three-hour runtime. Li Jun Li's character seemed like she was going to be built up towards something significant by the end, but she was sidelined for a majority of the second half of the film and had little to do during the conclusion. Overlord's Jovan Adepo's character as an African-American trumpet player ran through a major obstacle that provided an interesting highlight towards the treatment of ethnic minorities in early-day Hollywood, but I found the issue too neatly wrapped up by the end without the necessary conflict-solving to make it feel like a satisfying resolution, if not to the extent of being completely forgotten about by the end like Li Jun Li's character was. Which is quite a shame, as Adepo's character had the arc I was second-most emotionally invested in behind Diego Calva's and wanted more development for Adepo.
My last complaint towards Babylon has nothing to do with the film itself and is more about the abysmal marketing strategy that may probably led to audiences having wrong expectations going into the movie, and likely contributed to Babylon becoming such a big box-office flop. The trailers were overly vague in getting out the idea of what the film was about and just marketed it as a Wolf of Wall Street-style wild partying flick, when it was actually about Hollywood's transition from the silent era of films to talkies and the rise and fall of stars during that era.
However, while Babylon had many problems, there were also so many other aspects done exceptionally well, with the first thing I want to praise about being the music score. I have loved composer Justin Hurwitz's compositions for Chazelle's previous films and listened to them multiple times, so it's no surprise that his latest collaboration with Chazelle in Babylon didn't disappoint me either. The catchy "Voodoo Mama" theme has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it, the opening track "Welcome" captures the wild glamor of the time period depicted, and the more tender musical cue for Manny and Nellie is also memorable while recalling Mia and Sebastian's Theme from La La Land at the same time. (also by Hurwitz) When it comes to the Oscar nominations that year, the award I was most rooting for Babylon was Best Original Score, and I still listen to the Babylon music score on Spotify all the time even if it ultimately lost the Oscar.
Linus Sandgren (Damien Chazelle's go-to cinematographer since La La Land) delivers yet another winner of camera work with Babylon. I love the way he moves the camera through scenes, with a breathtaking unbroken shot moving through the opening party done in one take sticking out the most in my mind, with another sequence where the camera moves swiftly as it follows multiple films in production simultaneously impressing as well while also reminding me a lot of the not-shot-by-Sandgren Whiplash, curiously.
Regardless of whether their characters were fully fleshed out or not, the performances from the actors were strong across the board. In terms of the two leads who get top billing, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie are solid but have been better in other films. The real standout in Babylon is Diego Calva as Manny, who is a great point-of-view character to follow through this journey of changing times throughout Hollywood. I love Manny's viewpoint towards what makes cinema special to audiences, along with his unconditional kindness towards Robbie's character even with her being a complete mess as both a person and a public figure.
Jean Smart is another highlight of a role as a gossip columnist who follows careers of actors, and she has a monologue near the middle of the film about the nature and lasting legacy of cinema that resonated with me on the same level as Anton Ego's monologue at the end of Ratatouille. Jovan Adepo may have been underutilized but I still loved both his performance and the character arc, while Eric Roberts also had a short but amusing role, and I'm glad to see Roberts in another proper movie instead of stuck in the Z-grade SyFy/The Asylum dreck he has been constantly stuck in recent years. Tobey Maguire makes the most out of his limited screentime during the last portion of the film as well, and I never expected to see him as such a shady and creepy character.
The story deals with a lot of ambitious themes present in the entertainment industry, many of which I was able to get behind since I followed news in the entertainment industry and therefore understood what issues the film was trying to shine a light towards. While not every aspect of the story is successful in its execution, when Babylon hits the mark it really hit hard. The most well-developed theme throughout Babylon is its homage towards the evolution of cinema throughout the years and the legacy of film continuing to resonate with generations of new viewers, to which Damien Chazelle's love and appreciation towards the art form shines throughout, most notably during the previously mentioned monologue from Jean Smart and the ending I'll get to later. My interest and knowledge towards film history also admittedly helped me better get into the story.
The aspect of Damien Chazelle's previous films that leave the deepest impression on me are always the endings, and Babylon is no exception. I love the ending for Babylon mainly for how it wraps up a certain character and how it pays tribute to cinema history in general, which is the best way I could put it without spoiling anything.
Overall, had some major issues but still found a lot to like appreciate, while also admitting that it won't be for all tastes. I found myself enjoying Babylon more often than I hated it, therefore my score stands at a 7.5/10.
