Babylon

Movie: Babylon

Nominated for: Best Costumes, Best Production Design, Best Original Score

How I watched: Apple TV

When I fell asleep: I think I drifted at the very end

When it had me: a scene about filming with sound

When it lost me: the trailer

What systems does it challenge: I can't tell if it is challenging or celebrating systems

Content Warning: Self Harm, Addiction, Non-Consensual Acts, Rape, Abuse, Mental Health 

This movie was THREE HOURS and NINE MINUTES! I'm furious.

When I saw the trailer with its frenetic style and the celebration of debauchery, I inwardly cringed. I was worried that this was going to be one of those movies where debauchery was the whole point. After watching the movie, I'm still not clear about the whole point. 

The film begins with a party that assaults your senses with an absolute barrage of insanity and all of that promised debauchery. It feels gleeful and celebratory. It feels like I should be longing for the good old days of the wild beginnings of Hollywood. Yes, a woman is murdered and it will be covered up and yes, property is being destroyed, and yes, addiction is running dangerously rampant but look how free everyone is! Look at the unrepressed dancing! So I'm confused about whether Hollywood is the protagonist or the antagonist. I think it's both in this film and that is why it is unfortunate to sit through three hours of a movie that is fighting itself.

There was a similar confusion around Margot Robbie's character for me. There is no better description for her in almost every role than the Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl and here she was turned up to 11. Is she a poor girl, bent on stardom that is being abused by Hollywood or is she a monster that grabs at everything around her without asking for permission first? I feel like we should care about what happens to her but she doesn't care about anything so maybe not?

We see the circus-like atmosphere of shooting silent film with no regulation, protection or unions. Everyone is in constant danger, people are dying and being replaced and none of it matters but the dying of the light. It's grotesque and awful, really. But it's also presented in a slapstick way with a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head, almost as if to say, "It was crazy, right? These guys were legends for working like this!"

I will say that I absolutely loved the sequence where they try to shoot a film with sound for the first time. Here's a sequence where I think they got the balance correct. This was a lovely short film about the trials of film making with all of its love, hate and mania. Everyone is struggling and hating each other until they finally get the take right and then they celebrate like a family. The punchline is that somebody died while they were getting it right. It's sort of presented like a joke where at the end you shrug and say, "Eh, that's the business, right?" It works so well.

But please don't make the whole movie a cute little joke about Hollywood. You are asking me to sit for three hours! Please make it something more.

By the end of the film I started to think a decision had been made. The film makers now want me to understand that Hollywood is bad because it destroys people but THAT message just made me wish I was watching Nope again. Jordan Peele knew how to tell THAT story with rich metaphor and no ambiguity.

It was TOO long and I was disappointed.