Babylon (2022) – 3/5

Not as much of a triumph as the director wanted it to be, but eventually a solid example of film on film

Here we have the new movie „Babylon“ that premiered back in 2022 and now has made its way to my home country Germany there was no way I would miss out on the watch. Overall, I am glad I went to see it, even if I was not blown away. First, let us just take a look at the basics here: The writer and director is Damien Chazelle, already an Oscar winner for directing and he is pretty much my age, still under 40 and it will be interesting to follow his career over the next decades. As of now, I am a bit undecided when it comes to him. I have seen his big releases and I really enjoyed „Whiplash“. „La La Land“ I found overrated and „First Man“ was quite a disappointment even, maybe also because of the bland lead. This film here was a step up in quality again, but nothing great either. It has been between four and five years now since „First Man“, time really flew by quickly. Admittedly, Chazelle worked on two other projects too since then, a short film linked to new technology and a (then) new miniseries. That one did not reach the success he had hoped for. This film we have here maybe also did not even if it scored three Oscar nominations, namely for its production design, its costume and its music. Will be interesting to see how many it can win. The best shot is surely for the score. Justin Hurwitz already extended his perfect record at the Golden Globes and it seems quite possible that he will do the same with his almost perfect record at the Oscars. Quite something how he is racking up trophies. But it is difficult to disagree. I found two themes from the soundtrack extremely catchy and memorable, one of which is the main theme that stayed in everybody’s ear I guess and surely helped his awards ambitions.

As for the cast, the name Chazelle is crucial enough right now to make sure that every big name actor would happily be on board here. Indeed, you find Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in the movie. For them, it is also a reunion if we look at their work on a recent Tarantino film. By the way Pitt won an Oscar there and it was not the first time that Robbie is in a film that had her nominated for an Oscar and her supporting player win the category. Maybe she really is a bit of a lucky charm. No acting Oscar nominations for this film though, even if Pitt and Robbie got in at the Golden Globes. So did Diego Calva, who is definitely not a big name here, but after his performance he might have a strong career ahead and he was maybe the closest this film had to a lead. I am sure many did not know him at all before this film. As for the girls, Phoebe Tonkin may be known by some who watched a mermaid series earlier in the millennium and Olivia Wilde is also in this film, but it is just one very brief inclusion at the beginning. Li Jun Li is not too famous, but had much more screen time. Jean Smart is pretty successful on the small screen again these days, but gave a good performance here too. The cast is really gigantic in terms of quantity. On the male side, we can mention Flea, even if I did not recognize him which is a bit disappointing because I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Eric Roberts, Max Minghella and Jeff Garlin are also among the more familiar faces. Plus, towards the end, Tobey Maguire plays the closest the film has to an antagonist perhaps. His character was a real lunatic, career criminal and the idea of him pouring acid on a female character’s genital was telling enough. The makeup definitely made him more scary too as if he wasn’t scary enough already through his actions if you look at this bizarre underground place or whatever it is with all the „entertainment“ that goes on there. No surprise Calva’s character was really disgusted and only wanted to get away. Well, he had no choice in the end. He was really the only one who got lucky. Pitt’s character takes his own life because he had enough of it all with what is going on in the film industry and Robbie’s character was also ready to get caught and killed, but then eventually agrees to leave with Calva’s character, but that flight does not go on for a long time.

I mentioned one character’s makeup earlier and they included the makeup from another character as a bit of a vital element even to the story when we have a successful trumpet player getting in trouble because of his looks. He was a Black guy, but apparently not Black enough for his profession and for being recorded on camera, so he had to use dark chalk if I understood it correctly. I guess this inclusion was Chazelle’s slightly clumsy attempt to appeal to mainstream Hollywood these days. It would have been better without the character altogether. Chazelle always used relatively simple titles for his films, often only one word, and he kept going with this approach for this release here. It is a kinda fitting name though. Of course, as I am from Germany, the title reminded me of the series „Babylon Berlin“, which has been really big here for quite some time now and I think many people abroad, also in America have seen it, and of course said series plays during the same era, even if in a totally different corner of the world. But the decadence is surely there in both projects. Today I shall focus more on this one here. This is an incredibly long movie, so as short as the titles may be, the running time is the exact opposite as this one here makes it past the three-hour mark and now only by a few seconds. It is opulent from every perspective you could say, but surely this was intended in a way given the people’s behavior it is depicting. The women are also gorgeous in this film, no denying at all. This already starts with the one you see first on the screen early when we are inside the room that shows us all the decadence. She was no famous actress or anything I think, but maybe one day she will be. I remembered her at least.

I personally felt that this was almost two films in one. For example, Pitt’s and Robbie’s character have almost no connection at all. They meet briefly once and Robbie’s character talked about his character before that, but that is it. Instead Calva’s character has connections with both and so does Li Jun Li’s character. This scene with the snake there was among the most memorable. It was pretty awful to watch though. The female protagonist’s father was lucky he fell asleep before he got attacked, but Robbie’s character got the full load of venom into her neck and it was only thanks to Li Jun Li’s character that she survived this moment. She recovered so quickly too. As for this Asian character, Pitt’s character also seemed to have respected her a lot and after the snake scene we knew why. She is one who does not talk the talk, but walk the walk and apparently also always there for her friends. There’s other subplots here like one character struggling with his romantic endeavors and no happy ending for him either. The era really ate almost everybody up back then. One way or another. One scene I also really want to mention is the one between Brad Pitt’s and Jean Smart’s characters about how nothing and nobody is forever and that he should enjoy his status and that people will always remember him, even many decades later, and that this is something that really not many can say about themselves and that he in exchange for this „immortality“ needs to stop believing he can still make it big again, have another comeback. This was a powerful scene and great stuff from Smart there how she makes it work. I would have liked her to receive an Oscar nomination for this scene alone, even if the character shows up here and there again on other occasions. But this was her one big moment and for me it stayed more in the mind than almost any other scene. We also read about her character’s death then, just like how we read about Robbie’s character’s death. I still wonder why the hit man let Calva’s character go in the end, but oh well, not everything needs an explanation.

As for Smart’s character’s speech, it was clearly also effective enough on Pitt’s character if you look at the way how he leaves the room immediately after and also look at what he does to himself in his final scene then. The film closes with a fairly charming tribute to the movies itself. I must say I was a bit undecided if I should give the outcome here a positive or negative recommendation overall, but seeing Calva’s character there on his own in the movie theater watching „Singin‘ in the Rain“ it was I think did have some magic to it, also his strong emotional reaction there. It was good. What was not too good before that was really how Chazelle turned one scene into a tribute to specific movies that made an impact especially from a visual perspective. „Avatar“ was included there as well. So yeah, this really should have been left out and honestly, this film here takes itself more seriously at times than it has the right to I think. As if it was some groundbreaking epic, almost a revolutionary epic and I am sure Chazelle would have liked the film to be seen this way, but this breathtaking the movie really is not and sometimes less is more. With these words, this is also almost it then for my review here. This film had some nice strengths, but also some weaknesses. The inclusion of crime, especially in the last third, was interesting, even if I still have a hard time with seeing Maguire as a real Hollywood star, but I guess if you are interested about more from this era, you can check out the series „Boardwalk Empire“. Very good as well that one, even with less focus on music and film. If you want to see another great elaboration of film on film by one of the defining directors of our time, I highly recommend Martin Scorsese’s „Hugo“. If I remember correctly, I’d say that film there was close to masterpiece territory. This one here is pretty far away from such a categorization. Oh but the lengthy scene with all the obstacles they had to overcome when making an early sound film was interesting too. So yeah, go see this one.