Babylon

Fuck I’m so unbelievably conflicted about how to feel about Babylon. I guess I’ll start by kissing this films ass because it’s got some absolutely astounding scenes and technical work. The camera work here is genuinely on another level, there’s super long shots that move around intense scenes and wild parties and it makes it feel all the crazier. We just get to see it unfold and the little cutting really helps. The pacing is really great because even though it’s a little over 3 hours I never felt it and I started watching this at night when I was already tired but I had no issues with the runtime at all and was totally sucked in.  The acting is great here and is probably my favorite Margot Robbie roll I’ve seen yet. The story here is really great as well for the most part (I’ll touch on the most part in a bit) like when the film is actually focused on showing a historically accurate portrayal of making films in the 20’s-30’s it’s perfect. It’s so intense and there’s so much going on just for a simple shot to be executed and the film conveys that very well. There’s a specific scene about shooting a film with audio for the first time and that was by far my favorite part of the whole thing. The music here is also fantastic but what do you expect it’s Damien Chazelle. Now the plot itself is where I start to get negative. The first half of this film is absolutely brilliant, but then it starts to go downhill just a bit in the middle, and then in the last 40 minutes or so it just changes genres and becomes a different film. It’s not bad by any means but it just doesn’t feel like it flows together super well. Maybe that’s the point? Maybe I’ve missed something? But to me there’s a wild change up and shit gets a little too crazy. I’m a fan of weird and wacky shit, but there was absolutely none of that in the first 2 1/2 hours of the movie. Like out of nowhere it becomes basically a crime drama. It really threw me off and I still don’t know how to feel about it.  That being said it does wrap up all the characters really really well and oh my god the ending was beautiful. This has gotta be one of my favorite final scenes I’ve ever seen, my mind was blown.  One other thing I noticed that might seem nitpicking but it stood out to me. There’s like a little too much poop and vomit humor here, not like an ungodly amount it’s just after the fifth poop joke and seeing Margot Robbie projectile vomit on a dude in looney tunes fashion I started questioning why it was there. But again it doesn’t like totally distract me from the rest of the film it was just something I felt I should write.  I really feel conflicted about this whole thing because some parts are so amazing and beautiful and other parts are just odd to me, while still being really entertaining and well made. I honestly feel like my rating could go up or down during a rewatch, but for now I’m happy enough with a 4/5.