Notice how Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” has barely made it onto any of the critics ten best lists released so far this year. It’s really not that surprising. Having seen the film, it’s bound to rub people the wrong way. There’s really no way to pin down Chazelle’s film into one category.
And yet, no film this year aimed higher than “Babylon.” That in itself should earn your respect for this rousingly frenetic epic.
What I gathered from its NYC/LA screenings was that there would be a lot of love/hate for this film. Polarizing movies tend to, sometimes, be the best kind of cinema — the ones so maddeningly risk-taking that they can’t help but rub a good percentage of people the wrong way, but elate others.
As far as Oscar prospects go, this is the Margot Robbie show. In “Babylon,” she underacts, overacts and, really, just goes full-on gonzo in her role as a 1920s silent film starlet. Her performance has to be seen to be believed. Other categories? I’m not too sure.
Chazelle shoots his film like a madcap painter throwing tone and subtlety out of the window. He doesn’t mold his movie as much as just splatter it with surreal brush strokes. From scene-to-scene there’s constant wonderment at what exactly it is that you’re watching: Drama? Comedy? Horror? It’s really just a consistent blend of genres.
“Babylon” is such a strangely conceived film. I can’t seem to put my finger on it, but there’s something to be said about a film that goes from gross-out humor to sheer Greek tragedy in the blink of an eye. There’s shit, piss, cum, and vomit mixed total cinematic virtuosity. This “Babylon” is really something.
The whole thing feels like a hallucination, a fever dream of total chaos. It’s Chazelle’s dark odyssey through the last days of silent-era Hollywood where actors were being brushed aside for theatre-experienced performers in talkies. If Chazelle had a positive outlook on the industry in “La La Land,” he’s far less optimistic here — tackling the system, the politics, the money that fuels this machine. The characters here are all cogs in what will inevitably be a Hollywood that spits them out.