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I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.
While with 1941 it is at least understandable, because the film is about war. And therefor it being loud makes a lot of sense. Babylon is a comedic drama about Hollywood people. And it holds as much punch as 1941 does.
For obvious reasons, such as the two main leads Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt and the fact that the movie is about Hollywood and filmmaking, you can compare this film with a Quentin Tarantino picture "Once Upon The Time In Hollywood". But even though Quentin injected a very high amount of energy into his film, with the shier insanity of Babylon, comparing it to "Once Upon The Time In Hollywood" is like comparing RRR and Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon".
Let me try to illustrate the insanity of the movie. In the first five minutes of the film we already got a near death situation in which the main character with a help of some people are trying to move a fucking elephant up a hill with cars that were available in the 1920s. Which results in hilarious amount of swearing. And then results in the main characters getting covered in elephant feces. And the movie doesn't shy from the shit! The camera is getting dirty in the shit! People spit out the shit! You have multiple shots of the butt-hole of the elephant shitting! And that's only the first five minutes! From there the movie is full with loud music, parties, near pornographic shots of boobs, dicks and people fucking, explosions, fights, deaths, people getting stuck with their heads in the toilet, people fighting snakes, and lots and lots of drugs!
And what blew me away was that all of that was wonderfully directed. You have very thought-out long takes. Often with hundreds of extras and often involving either stuns or sex or both. Even though there is chaos, Damien doesn't go for Bayhem, but rather he is focused and the important stuff is still coming through to you when it is important. Damien also uses a fair bit of shock in this movie. I already told you about the elephant shitting scene. But he does similar things all though out to keep check of your human senses.
The movie at one point chooses to become a horror film. And I didn't expect a director of mostly musicals to be so effective at horror. And I didn't expect Tobey Maguire ( Spiderman ) to be such an effective horror movie antagonist.
With all of it's shier energy, the movie does slow down in a few scenes. Those scenes that need to be slower for the emotional punch, are. Which makes the quicker parts of the film feel even quicker in comparison.
The main criticism of that film could be it's length. It goes for 3 hours. And with that much energy you feel like it is 5 hours. Long films usually benefit from slower pacing. For example the decision to make very few, but long, shots in Gravity ( directed by Alfonso Cuarón ) resulted in the film feeling like a short film. While some short films with insane energy might feel like proper movies. This is a long film with insane energy. Which feels like a very long film. The few slower scenes aren't nearly slow enough to give you the breathing room that you might need. A problem similar to 1941. Though I enjoyed it a lot simply because of how over-dozing it is. Perhaps I'm personally crazy and nobody should let me unhinge myself onto the big screen either. Imagine a 3 hours long version of Moria's Race.
The emotional core of the film and it's more philosophical discussion is very interesting. It has a lot of moments that hurt because of character dynamics, not because of some kind of explosive violence. Even though there is explosive violence too. None of the characters are perfect. Every single one of them has flaws. Some have outright annoying quirks of personality. And they usually find other characters without those same quirks annoying for lacking them. Even the background characters have enough personality to be memorable, often with a quirk that makes them annoying. Like there is a guy that is there for two scenes. And his quirk is that he spits loudly all the time.
Damien Chazelle is one of the best directors ever. And the fact that he is not 40 years old yet speaks a lot about his future potential. This film was perhaps the most unhinged thing that any studio would ever let him do. And from now on they would probably look after him a little bit, like those producers looking after Spielberg's spending in the early 80s after he made 1941. But I only hope that studios will not do that. And will let Damien do an even crazies movie next time.
Happy Hacking!!!
