Babylon

The Hangover meets The Great Gatsby. A trampled reel with La La Land inserted into the projector upside down. Above all, a pure ode to the joy of cinema and at the same time the shine and misery of great actors. Every time it seemed that Babylon was taking a breath for the final act, another twist came. And another one. From stabbing joy to sadness on demand, the most positive emotions hand in hand with pain. Damien Chazelle probably got an excessive budget for the last time and used it to the last cent for a film that too few viewers saw. But in creating this, he climbed so high that it takes courage to even follow him. (02/21/2023)

I needed some time to process Babylon. After getting home from the cinema, I had to unwind, sleep, dream some nice movie dreams (which I did), wake up, take a walk through the frosty landscape to work, and take a deep breath to fully grasp what I had witnessed. Babylon is an impressive film. It tells the story of Hollywood’s silent era through the lives of three different characters, with Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Diego Calva delivering stellar performances. While Pitt and Robbie push emotional boundaries, Calva, as a newcomer, is a revelation. These three stories weave together, exploring a film era that holds a special place under the sun. The opening half-hour prologue sets the tone. The camera pans through a house party hosted by a studio mogul, showcasing pure, unfiltered decadence. You’ll wish you had more than two eyes to capture everything happening on screen. After this wild intro, the main story unfolds, diving into period Hollywood and referencing various personalities of the time. Each scene offers something new and unexpected. The film is bolstered by a fantastic score that sometimes borrows from La La Land, which I didn’t mind at all, and humor that had me in stitches. The second act turns significantly darker, leading to a finale that is a true cinematic orgasm. Witnessing the premiere was an incredible experience, and I think Babylon will resonate with me for a long time. (01/19/2023)

“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. (05/28/2023)

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. (01/05/2023)

Explosive in places, but mostly unnecessarily theatrical, hectic and extremely long. Chazelle is recognizable thanks to the musical interludes, which are imaginary mini-peaks of the film. An ode to old Hollywood that has its positive moments, especially on the technical side. Starting with fantastic cinematography, impressive production design and good music. But watching this coked-up wilderness for 190 minutes requires a great deal of patience. Most of the dialogue passages oscillate somewhere between a selection of Tarantino and Scorsese, but never getting it right. A bold, unusual but hard to digest film. (03/10/2023)