Babylon (2022) | The Film Index

Film Record

Babylon

Country: United States
Release: 22 DEC 2022
Runtime: 189 min
Original Language: English

Community Rating

★★★★★

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A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.

Why It's Here

Damien Chazelle’s chaotic epic acts as a stylized portrait of Hollywood's disruptive transition from the silent era to synchronized sound. It’s notable for its kinetic, maximalist approach to showing the backbreaking, unglamorous labor that goes into building screen illusions.

What to Watch For: The cacophonous sound design and kinetic camera work in the first half of the film, which evoke the film’s lawless myth of silent-era freedom. Compare this to the suffocating, static, and oppressively quiet scenes later in the film when the characters are boxed into the rigidity of early soundstage recording booths.

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Babylon

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