Where La La Land can only be explained in fits of thought of detailed praises, Babylon slouches in embarrassed awkwardness as it is best described in sighs of disregard, and eventually forgotten.

1/5 stars

Imagine a film set at some relevant point in cinema’s relatively short history. Imagine that this film is directed by an acclaimed director who, arguably, has carved out a name for himself in the tough and fickle marble that moulds moving pictures with five-star flicks and trailers infused with out-of-context adjectives (The New York Times says ‘amazing…’). 

Imagine that the film is a love letter, one crafted with diligence and experience as it reminisces on its own medium with care but doesn’t omit the sharp-edged realities. Now imagine that you have read this letter several times over the past few years inked by Spielberg and Fincher and Tarantino and as you walk into the theatre to watch Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, you realise you don’t want to read it again.

Chazelle starts his introduction by setting the tone for his three-hour and nine-minute saga that, before you know it, will stretch out in front of you like the first kilometre of an ultramarathon and will keep on stretching. It’s 1926 and Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is transporting an elephant from an LA ranch to a Hollywood exec party that looks like Harvey Weinstein organised a Moulin Rouge-themed birthday bash. As Manny pushes an over-burdened truck carrying the grey beast up a hill, the elephant panics and defecates onto the camera and a throwaway extra.

While the jolting absurdity of the scene is comedic on paper, in picture it leaves a sour taste that sticks between your teeth and can’t be forgotten as the mood has been created: a potty-humour film masquerading as something more behind film-grained shots and jewelled colours. And, as if Chazelle hadn’t made his point clear, cut to the party to see a bacchanalia made up of skinny topless women and fat rich men revelling in their urine kink.

Chazelle tries to paint a picture of decadent furniture used by debauchery-addicted characters but, instead, the mismatched tempo between South Park jokes and the star-studded cast create an uninhabitable space. There is no restraint which, while it may be the point, it can be difficult to gauge the film’s human centre as it barely scratches the emotional surface – an aspect that pinned Chazelle’s two previous writer-director projects (Whiplash and La La Land) as cinematic landmarks.

The hyperbolic characters are forgettable as they gallop down their ‘and-then’ arcs; Margot Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy is closer to a knock off Harley Quinn as she seemingly forgets how to play a human character while Brad Pitt plays his usual type-casted role of straight white man that drinks and gets laid. Their performances are only made more glaring when compared to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Tarantino’s nostalgic cinema reverie that starred both A-listers alongside DiCaprio – a film that zeroes in on the industry with explosive consequences.

No conviction... Brad Pitt. Photo: Paramount Pictures

Unfortunately, the comparison goes a step further as Chazelle forgoes the subtle allegory for the spoon-fed lesson. Where Whiplash tells its humbling story visually, Babylon explains everything on a silver platter; the most forceful example is when Chazelle cuts through a montage of cinema’s history which includes James Cameron’s Avatar, a moment as alienating as the blue CG actors. This is not the first time Babylon underlines its meaning as it re-explains the same high-brow-but-actually-extremely-low-brow point with mind-numbing consistency in between its numerous planted guns that never get shot.

At the end of this bloated and belligerent behemoth is a series of endings that refuse to roll credits until every vacuous metaphor is put to pasture. While some may revel in the un-ending list of gags whose punchline is nothing more than “… and then she vomits,” Babylon falls miles behind its peers as Chazelle shrivels under the weight of grandiose pretences. And when he does eventually sign his name at the bottom of the back-handed love letter, it is nothing more than a disappointing relief; thankful that it is over but sad to see the recognised author take credit.