Movie Review: Babylon

 Movie Number 10 of 2023

The Movie: Babylon

The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens

Stars: 3.5

The easiest way to get me to a movie is to say I'll hate it. 

Jay saw this a few weeks ago and loathed it. Despite her repeated comments that it was a load of tosh, I was still keen. But rather than pay cash for this, I used movie points so that if I walked out - and plenty of people allegedly walked out of Jay's session, then I wouldn't be upset because no money changed hands.  

Well, I didn't hate it. 

But this is a problematic movie. 

Damien Chazelle is a polarizing writer and director. Okay, Whiplash is incredible - and if you missed it, hunt it out. Superb stuff. La La Land had audiences loving and hating it in equal measure. I saw it twice - had no idea about it the first time, loved it the second.

Babylon, I won't be seeing again. But, I do appreciate it for what it is. And what it is not. 

Babylon is not: 

• Short - at three hours and nine minutes it's probably an hour too long. 
• Subtle - nah, none of that. 
• Particularly tasteful - from the first scene, which is just gross, there are many other tasteless scenes peppered throughout. Full frontal, vomitous, drug infused and shit stained. You've been warned. 

But, and this is the big but. This is a movie about excess. What do you bloody expect?  IMDB.com describes it as "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." 

Yep, that's about it. 

If you've ever seen Singing in the Rain, you'll know that the movie is about the change in movies from silent films to talkies. However, you can let your kids watch Singing in the Rain. 

And not so strangely, there are a number of scenes which play direct homage to this wonderful film. If I'm not mistaken, the film has a very similar scene on what looks like the same sound stage. 

Starting during the excesses of the twenties, we find the three main characters going through journeys.

Brad Pitt is Jack Conrad, king of the silent films who transitions to the talkies, only to find himself aging out of the system. 

Margot Robbie is Nellie LaRoy, a starlet from New Jersey who's trying every method under the sun to get herself into the pictures. She spends most of the film high and in some sort of trouble. 

And my favourite of the pack, Diego Calva as Manny Torres, a studio executive's Mr Fixit, who makes his way up the pile to Studio director being somebody who can fix anything. For me, he was the absolute standout as he straddles the many worlds of film making. I particularly loved the very last bit of the movie where Manny returns 20 years later. It's wonderfully nostalgic.

Jovan Adepo is also excellent as Sidney Palmer, a trumpet player who starts off doing parties but ends up in the films. His story is particularly poignant in places. 

For a film about excess, it's just this feature which detracts from the film. There's almost too much to take in, particularly in the raucous, Bacchynalian party scenes, which are as exquisite as they are grotesque. But this is the point of the film. It's just as much a commentary on the unrealistic nature of the movie industry as it is of the times it represents.

There's also some very sly digs at events and people over the time. Fatty Arbuckle being one of them. Hedda Hopper, the gossip columnist being another. 

I also like the cameos that are peppered throughout. Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Eric Roberts just to name a few. 

Another thing to remember about this is that its up for three Academy Awards - for production design, costumes and original score. For these elements, and the cinematography, this film is a winner. 

Summing this up, it's probably more a film for the movie junkie, the aficionado of film, rather than those looking for something easy to watch. It's deeply unpleasant in places, but utterly thought provoking in others. It holds up a very dirty mirror to an industry which eats people up and spits them out without a care. And in an odd way, this is a bit of a love song to this strange, vital, weird and powerful industry. 

See this at your own peril. It's probably one for the purists. 

Today's song: