Babylon: A Raucous, Livewire Romp Through The Golden Age Of Hollywood
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.
Imagine Boogie Nights and Wolf Of Wall Street doing a mountain of blow with the love child of Singing In The Rain and La La Land. Add in a dash of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, and that’s pretty much Damien Chazelle’s Babylon in a nutshell. If that doesn’t entice you, maybe this will: before its opening title card even hits, you see an elephant shit all over our main character, a woman piss all over on a man’s chest, and a coked-up Margot Robbie completely obliterate the dance floor of a bacchanal rager.
It’s a glorious, drug-added mess that revels in the gross and outrageous, finding nuggets of comedy gold along its three-hour debauch. Chazelle doubles down on his stylish extravagance and unapologetically cranks the dial to 11, manufacturing a filmic cocaine in the process that’s apt to give you a contact high — with the added possibility of a big come down, depending on how you rock with its ending.
The film is long and juvenile and chaotic, which will test a viewer’s patience or flat-out exhaust them, and it’s entirely possible to walk away with the impression that its an overly brazen, loud and obnoxious experience; the dark side of Singing In The Rain and little else. That’s certainly a big part of it, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, especially if you’re not on board with its hedonistic shenanigans, but there’s a bit more going on here; it’s just pushed decisively into the periphery.
Chazelle wants us to get caught up in the insanity of the spectacle because it’s precisely how our main character, Manuel “Manny” Torres, feels. He’s so enamored by the glitz, glam, and extravagance of the Hollywood machine that he’ll do anything to be a part of it, including turning his back on his Mexican roots and Americanizing his name, amongst other things (like getting doused with elephant feces).
There’s also Sidney, a Black jazz musician who plays music in and for the pictures, who’s asked to darken his face with shoe polish so as not to appear white on film. It’s something the young man reluctantly obliges — at Manny’s request to boot — but following the unforgivable ask, Sidney has enough sense to turn his back on the uncaring industry, finding happiness outside the Hollywood system in the night club jazz scene. It takes Manny a whole lot longer to reach that point, and even then, it’s anything but voluntary.
Babylon’s wickedly wild ride is energetically brought to life by Chazelle’s limitless style and the charisma of its actors. For starters, Chazelle really directs the hell out of this thing and delivers sequence upon sequence of spellbinding scope, controlled chaos, and spectacular style. He permeates the film with a confident attitude and a clear adoration for cinema and film history, going so far as to embed real-life inspiration into his kooky tapestry of characters.
As far as the actors go, Margot Robbie proves she’s an absolutely effervescent force of nature. She gives a commanding performance that makes it incredibly easy for us to understand why Manny is so smitten with her; we are just as easily consumed by her audacity, aura, and ability. Brad Pitt is as charming as ever and delivers a spirited performance that relishes in each comedic opportunity he’s presented. Amidst the two of them is Diego Calva holding his own and delivering a smoldering breakthrough performance. There’s also a slew of fun and flavorful supporting characters that further add to the film’s overflowing personality.
In a broad sense, Babylon is about how the industry sucks folks in and spits them out. The pain and tragedy of real-live is made into pleasure and comedy on screen (literally and figuratively), and the old is discarded in favor of the new, but the new is built on the back of the old. In short, cinema keeps going well beyond an individual’s curtain call, and the films they give themselves to become a part of history. It’s also about the identity of its characters and how they’re changed to better assimilate into the machine, positing that the more you maintain your integrity, the happier you’ll be. Chasing dreams of fame will only lead to heartbreak, and we see this explicitly in many of the film’s character arcs as the story transitions from glory to passion to loss. Structurally, it’s very much akin to Boogie Nights’ soaring rise and harrowing fall, and it even has its own bonkers “Long Way Down (One Last Thing)” bit in the third act, which features a crocodile, a man eating a rat, and a deliriously deranged Tobey Maguire. What more could you possibly ask for?
When it’s all said and done, Babylon might be a little too high on its own supply, but if you’re anything like us, its infectiously intoxicating buzz will have you asking for some of whatever Chazelle is having. If you’re along for the lewd and crude and outrageous ride, there will be plenty of entertainment value that awaits you. It’s far too unmoored to be a perfect film, but it does have personality in excess, and the craftsmanship and artistry of it is too damn good to ignore. Besides, it had us at the shitting elephant in the opening scene. The rest of it is pretty good, too.
Recommendation: If you like films about filmmaking and enjoy the stylish exuberance of La La Land, definitely give Babylon a go. If you’re looking for something more sophisticated and whimsical, there’s always Singing In The Rain.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!