Paramount Pictures presents Babylon exclusively in UK cinemas on January 20, 2023.
Synopsis
From Damien Chazelle, BABYLON is an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, with an ensemble cast including Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li and Jean Smart. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.
Review
Damien Chazelle’s latest feature, one that calls back upon so many of his musings on the art, the artists and the industry, is a gargantuan accomplishment for the ages. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, chronicling the rise and fall of multiple characters during Hollywood’s transition from silent films to talkies in the late 1920s into the early 1930s.
Babylon is the profound antithesis to La La Land; a film deeply passionate about the magic, dedication, and creativity of dreamers, and the pursuit of passion and is in love with the dream of Hollywood. But everything is a dream, until it turns into a nightmare… Babylon is a powerful deconstruction and exposure of that nightmarish truth. Chazelle now goes for the jugular, exposing how the town and culture have made him a cynic, despite still loving cinema as the art form.
He’s bolder, unafraid, and far more critical, as any great artist of his time and while still believing in the raw power of cinema, he’s become disillusioned with the system, the politicking, and the money that fuels the fires of its capitalist culture.
Chazelle’s kinetic direction, alongside Hurtwiz’s exhilarating score; an energised continuous beat of drums and trumpets, blues and jazz inspired (in it of itself a reflection of the era and the changing times) the noise distracting from the lurking darkness mirroring how the glamour so often blinds us, and has even blinded Chazelle, to the sinfulness underneath the surface, together they evoke sheer, rousing euphoria. He takes us on one INSANE deep dive into the twilight years of the silent era and the transformative transition into the talkies with the final result outrageous romp revealed profound layers & insightful analysis along the way.
The purity of the excess, debauchery and unchanneled chaos of Hollywood exposes an industry and mindset that’s so reluctant to change, it desperately clings to bygone eras and the comfort of what it knows, in a vicious cycle. Chazelle attacks this hollow culture of the industry head-on, commenting on the destructive monster that is fame, the unending pursuit of eternity, and exploitation of marginalized peoples.
Hollywood is depicted as an all-consuming gaping abyss of exhibition at the expense of everything there is or ever was, and yet, miraculously, Chazelle uncovers genuine beauty and emotion, amidst the mayhem. We see it through every character journey, the twists and turns taken along the way, the life-affirming highs and hopelessness of the lows, and everything in between. All is captured in its genuine tumultuous nature, as characters influence and impact each journey significantly: from Manny’s happy accidents; beginning as a helper at a party, serving the high and mighty, but soon becoming the assistant to Hollywood’s biggest star, an eventually a successful studio executive holding all the power over the marginalized as he once was. Or Nellie’s voyage: a big-eyed runaway full of wonder and hope who transforms into adored star even renouncing her real name, only for the trauma she ran away from all her life to catch up to her as Hollywood grows tired of her unhinged nature, the exact characteristic that once made her adored by thousands, sending her down a desperate inescapable spiral while Jack, who lives and breathes the adoration of multitudes to the point no single personal relationship can satisfy him,
yet once that adoration is gone what does he have to live for and how does he hold on to that spotlight. The intertwining journeys reflect the unending abyss that is Hollywood, we grasp so desperately to attain the unattainable, but it doesn’t want us, nor does it need us, it simply uses us.
As much as Chazelle portrays the town, the culture, and the industry like an irresistible drug, it’s the people who are used and thrown away once Hollywood is done with us, stripping away our humanity and sucking dry the passion, imagination and drive that brings the dreamers onto Tinsel Town in the first place.
Chazelle cherishes his characters with compassion and humanity but scathingly looking down on the culture that strips them of those wonderful, unique, and beautiful characteristics.
His love and admiration for what the art can offer, moments so meaningful anyone watching them on a screen can emotionally connect, are palpable through each emotional beat and genuinely leave you in awe.
These moments of ineffable fascination rise above the drug ridden, emotionally abusive, sexually loaded no man’s land that is Hollywood; it’s precisely what Chazelle adores and is chasing in his narrative. Despite his hatred for the seedy culture of the town, he understands the lasting power of cinema, even when Hollywood chews up and spits out every last one of the stars and names its built upon; his focus is to emphasize the importance of echoing a moment, a feeling or reflecting someone’s experience on screen so purely that inspires future generations of artists and dreamers to bring forth their art and stories; and what makes our stories matter is that… try as we might to fight it, we’re all mortal.
We’ll all fade into obscurity as time goes by, and the town that is Hollywood keeps going, but what we leave behind us, our legacy, it can live on, through the screen, inspiring generations… until it touches what we all chase: eternity.
Chazelle understands what truly makes movies magic, its hypnotising spell on our emotions and experiences and ultimately why the art of cinema matters: making Babylon the quintessential Hollywood epic of our time.
Verdict
The mesmerising immenseness of Babylon is fully intoxicating. An exquisitely crafted, all-engrossing, lavish & exuberant tragedy. Chazelle’s epic is an audacious, bold & chaotic odyssey on the quest for immortality & self-destruction with an electric score and monumental set-pieces. It’s heartfelt, sincere, wild & unforgettable!
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
