Babylon

“Never have I seen such a maelstrom of bad taste and sheer magic.” Two feature films in one, each about something different. One is riveting, bold, frantic, brash; like a Mad Max: Fury Road of the film industry during the silent era. The other is also very good, but classic in themes and concept. It's about nostalgia for bygone times, inevitable progress and the love of cinema. Both are superb, though each in their own way. The first is an ocean liner better, for it is purely Chazelle's. The latter, for all its qualities, comes across as "merely" Chazelle's respectful homage to Sunset Blvd., Cinema Paradiso and the like. The worst thing for both films, however, is that they pretend to be one, which doesn’t help either of them. (28.05.2023)

I had to calm down a bit in Babylon. Coming home from the cinema, relaxing, falling asleep, dreaming of some nice movie dreams (which actually came true), waking up in the morning, taking a walk through the frozen landscape to work, taking a deep breath and realizing what I had actually witnessed. Babylon is an impressive film. It tells the story from the silent era in Hollywood through three different characters and their stories, with all three actors playing their roles perfectly. Specifically Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Diego Calva. While the first two push the emotional boundaries, Diego Calva as a newcomer incredibly surprises. These three different stories then intertwine and pass through a film era that has its place under the Sun. Everything is said in the opening half-hour prologue. The camera gradually moves through the rooms of a house where one of the many events of the film studio owner takes place. But what was happening on stage was the grossest form of narrative decadence. You can only regret that at that moment you have only two eyes because you can't take in everything happening on the screen. After the finale of the introduction itself and the appearance of the Babylon title, the actual story finally comes. Set in the backdrop of the era of Hollywood, it refers to various personalities of the time, and the viewer enters from one scene to another, where each one brings something new, unknown. Throughout the film, there is fantastic music that at times resembles La La Land, but I didn't mind at all and the humor at times even triggered fits of laughter in me. In the second act, the story significantly darkens and the finale is a real cinematic orgasm. It was beautiful to witness the premiere of this film. Babylon will resonate with me for a long time... (19.01.2023)

Babylon is a subjectively irrelevant and aesthetically disjointed depiction of early Hollywood with hackneyed (Brad Pitt), uninteresting (Diego Calva) and annoying (Margot Robbie) lead characters. Chazelle overshot the mark. If it weren’t for the accompanying jazz interludes, you wouldn’t even recognize him in this. The wild parties and scenes of hectic filmmaking are entertaining, but you can sense the strong theatricality in them. The scene of filming on the first soundstage is the best of the whole film, both in its execution and cinephilic dimension. But as soon as the overly long runtime veers into into a fatalistic lament over the inability to go along with progress, it gradually goes downhill, all the way into the “LA shit hole”, i.e. the most WTF scene in the whole film. (06.03.2023)

Babylon can make a very impressive first impression. Within the opening thirty minutes, Damien Chazelle serves up physical humour that even Dumb and Dumber would be proud of and a wild orgy of fun filled with sex, cocaine, alcohol, loud music and plenty of reasons for anyone who despises Hollywood to despise it even more. The Wolf of Wall Street would probably walk away from this party disgusted halfway through. But this is where we meet several protagonists who will spend the next few years trying to carve out a little fame, fortune, wealth or respect in Hollywood. And far from all of them succeed. Babylon looks like a grand Luhrmann-type film at first glance, but it's only superficial. Chazelle knows very well how to make the viewer admire his depiction of Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s on the one hand and despise it on the other. He knows how to make his characters laugh, but at the same time make the viewer worry about them, wish them luck or watch their slow, unavoidable fall. And while it looks truly spectacular – not only during the lavish parties, but even during the actual filming of one small scene, which the director manages to turn into an absurd grotesque – at its core this epic drama is actually a rather intimate story of people who have been "there" for a while, had a chance to create dreams and didn't notice that their own lives were turning into a nightmare. Great film. (05.01.2023)

I guess I'm too old for this kind of conceptually and dramaturgically disjointed and incoherent films, where nothing works and the mess on the screen slaps you so hard that you're completely numb and tired at the end. The only thing that works a little bit is the references to old classics, but these days they can emotionally enrich you incomparably more and they only need half the running time. This looks like it wasn't even made by Damien Chazelle, but by some egomaniac who merely needed to propel himself over his supposed genius. The production design and music are top notch, the should by shat on elephant shit and flushed. (06.09.2023)