BABYLON

"You held the spotlight. It's those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive." - Elinor St. John

Hollywood loves to make films about Hollywood. When they’re not basking in their own infatuation, they're pretentiously avoiding the tone deaf, deep-rooted social grievances they’ve perpetuated since the silent film era. They scream “social justice” in their narrative cognisance while gender pay disparities, racial discrepancies, and drug ubiquity stain the enlightened essence they tout during their award ceremonies and press releases. Some storytellers are better than others when it comes to historical awareness, portraying the depravity and magnetism Hollywood epitomized throughout its years of transition and self indulgence. Embodying the antithetical reality of his La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon wreaks havoc on Hollywood’s convergence to sound cinema. Bombastic, ambitious, and unapologetically chaotic, Babylon’s self-referential embrace of excessive holism and gorging nihilism provides the rampageous rendering of old Hollywood debauchery we never thought we needed.

1920’s Hollywood: Actors get picked at random outside of a film studio: Safety precautions are nonexistent as injuries and death occur: Anyone with a dream did whatever they could to get noticed and stay contractually obligated: Drugs and sex existed in tandem with the industry. It wasn’t until the talkies of the 1930’s that the film industry’s prestige had an audible tune. Desperate to continue into the new age of cinema, actors and stage crew compromise their talent and identities to maintain a footing as the innovations of the future threaten to leave them behind. Ostentatious benders turn to afternoon tea parties and individual reputations become monetized capital. In all its frenzied, befuddled glory, Babylon embodies the mercurial heartbeat Hollywood emanates. A side-splitting, ingenious, clusterfuck of a film, Chazelle took a chance on his biggest investment yet and boy did his brilliance pay off.

Chazelle’s biggest ally presents itself in his ability to not take his subject too seriously. His previous works La La Land and Whiplash were masterclass productions in the realm of perfectionism. The poignancy with which they were shot and the hued intimacy that exploited each character wasn’t a structural component in Babylon. The stylized precision was replaced with melodramatic extravagance as comedic literacy nestled in the crevices of each frame satiates the first two acts with buoyant tenacity. However intense with its drug use, death toll and lasciviousness, the film’s authenticity instills a commanding intrigue into the furtherance of each character and their storyline. The hook’s immediacy as Babylon sinks its claws into the world of the original Hollywoodland speaks for itself and consumes each scene in the transience that typifies the film industry.

Chazelle as an auteur primarily focuses on the individual, building an explorative narrative around a character obsessed with perfection and success. However, this time around he focuses on the whole– each character, storyline, and set design constructed to represent an ephemeral motion picture machine. Perhaps the overwhelming nature of the film roots itself in the pandemonium of its moving parts and the acknowledgment that each fleeting piece can be replaced and molded in the blink of an eye. Babylon embraces that chaos with its gaudy parties, unconventional set oversight and depravity fueled contingencies, all leading to the overarching conclusion that anyone and everyone can and will be left behind.

Interwoven delicately in between snake fighting and ramshackled set direction prevails an emotional disposition about the collapse of the American, and specifically Hollywood, dream. In times of change those that adapt survive. Old Hollywood glamor mystified audiences, escapism encapsulated communities, and with their ever-changing attention spans and shiny-toy object syndromes the people enveloped in this world of moving pictures enslaved their prevalence to the whims of the audiences consuming them. James Mckay’s mobster introduction, played by Tobey Mcguire, and his depraved menagerie known as “the asshole of Los Angeles” gives ode to the elephant wrecked, sex indulgent party the film opened with. More importantly, Mckay represents two things: the Hollywood trajectory and the manifestation of the immoral repression Hollywood hid behind closed doors.

The latter because of society's interest in the macabre. Sidney Palmer, a black musician, and Lady Fay Zhu, an asian performer, please the masses not because of their talent, but because of their fetishized association. America’s infatuation with them is based on the idea of the proverbial cage with which they are allowed to share their talents. Their expensive clothes and powerful connections don't take away the tethered, animalistic lens they are viewed through– just like those deformed, monstrous freaks in Mckay’s cabinet of curiosities. The former because a lifestyle such as the ones shown in Babylon take their toll. Numerous divorces, drug addiction, adultery, death, The Golden Era of Hollywood displayed an opulent facade, while descending into barbarity behind the scenes. The highlighted group of ensnared individuals Chazelle features serve as a cautionary tale for the price of fame, and the inevitability that the mighty will fall. Babylon entangles you in the vestiges of an industry that once was in order to dazzle you in admonition for what actually is.

Humanizing the cogs in the Hollywood churn out machine is just a parlor trick written many times over, but doing it while criticizing the institution itself is rare. Margot Robbie’s gritty portrayal of drunkard Nellie LaRoy electrifies and embellishes a lifestyle lived on borrowed time. Brad Pitt’s golden boy Jack Conrad becomes imperative. Reliable and grounded in the silent film era, Hollywood cemented him as just that, the face of a time no longer lucrative in a modernizing industry. Diego Calva’s Manny Torres exemplifies that a hard work ethic and pure passion for the art can be your blessing and your curse. What all of these personalities couldn’t escape, despite their successes and fame, was the gravitational pull into the blackhole of Hollywood obscurity. Chazelle explores the foundation of the film industry through the sympathetic and lawless lens of his protagonists– an admittance that its infrastructure resembles a house of cards, built on sheer will and luck.

Babylon is the best of all worlds– comedy, drama, action, all complimented by perfect pacing and an emotional undercurrent. A film about the duality of Hollywood, Chazelle continues his legacy about the cost of success. Sometimes an arduous script and vision can lead to a cinematic powerhouse that leaves you teary-eyed and awe-inspired. A trip down the road less traveled, Chazelle shows no restraint in this experimental heavy-hitter. Babylon delivers open-ended criticism and an all-encompassing experience from start to finish… what you interpret from either is entirely up to you.