Babylon (2023)

Damian Chazelle's back catalogue is impressive to say the least; his debut Whiplash (2014) remains one of the best and most original films of the last decade, and he followed this up with La La Land (2016), a film that was actually read out as the winner of the Best Picture award at the Oscars before the Academy rectified their mistake, and most recently First Man (2018); the impressive partial biopic of Neil Armstrong.

Babylon, is without doubt his most ambitious project to date.

An homage to the birth of cinema in some respects, whilst confirmation of the debauchery of the 'Golden Age' in others, it spans decades in L.A following the highs and lows of the creme de la creme in the city, focusing mainly on Diego Calva's Manny (who dreams of being part of big productions) and Margot Robbie's Nellie LaRoy (a wannabe star).

Nellie is introduced as she blags her way into an exclusive party in Bel-Air that involves a Fatty Arbuckle nod, an elephant, and plenty of bizarre sexual antics amongst a plethora of drugs and alcohol.

Nellie's introduction invokes Nomi's entrance into Las Vegas in Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls (1995), and the similarities between the two films don't stop there- the most notable being that both pictures were given a wildly miscalculated kicking by the critics.

A three hour descent into debauchery and depravity is how Chazelle's film has been widely described, but if we're being completely honest Babylon isn't really that degenerate.

The difference, possibly, is that something that contains plenty of explicit scenes simply hasn't hit the mainstream cinema with this much publicity in a while, and although the film is sprawling and at times messy, it's completely absorbing.

It's also worth noting the similitude with Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) that also shares two of Babylon's big stars, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, and withal extracts superb performances from both.

Babylon is split into three distinct parts, exploring the silent movie era then heading into the sound period (this transformation is depicted in one of the years' best scenes as the cast and crew of a production struggle with the technical adaptations to sound) before the final third ends up being a melancholic and eventually rather touching evocation of the dying embers of an actor or actresses' career.

Chazelle's adaptation of the epoch echoes Martin Scorcese's own nod to cinema, 2011's Hugo, and if you want something a bit more family friendly, Scorcese's film is certainly worth your time; Babylon however, offers an alternative account of twenties and thirties cinema and the excess alluded to in Kenneth Anger's 1959 book Hollywood Babylon (initially banned on release) which Chazelle's film irrevocably invokes.

Babylon may well be overstuffed and flamboyant to a fault, but this is the point- like Showgirls it's a depiction of the scene, and just because you don't like the extremity of what's unfolding, it doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that it's not entertaining to watch on screen.

Justin Hurwitz's excellent score, that has been criticised for being overcooked, is in fact a subtle reminder of the joy and mastery that music provided during the time and is used as an effective juxtaposition of the seemingly senseless actions and lifestyles that are thrown at us for three hours.

Far from being exhausting for the viewer, Babylon provides an intriguing escape and some extraordinarily bold film making that, far from being the dud many claim, may well be one of the years' best films. 8.2/10