Babylon

Attempts to out-Fellini Fellini are regrettable and for much of its length Babylon is an unsubtle and indigestible mess so that despite all the talent involved and the fascinating subject matter, it must be seen as something of a disaster.

Subtle it is not. Nor is it good.

Chazelle’s film commemorates the era’s hubris as it indulges in a bit of its own. This is how a world ends. Not with a whimper but a great deal of banging, baby. And vomiting. And snorting.

Babylon is a disaster of biblical proportions, precisely because it had so much potential.

Babylon is not so much a film of two halves, but a third of a brilliant movie and two hours of unmitigated mess and chaos.

In the end, Chazelle does evoke the elegiac mood he’s after, finishing with a wistful meditation on the evanescence of fame and the fragility of those who fail to survive its demands.

Ultimately a condemnation of the Hollywood machine that crushes everyone with equitable cruelty and an ode to the innovative artistry and ineffable magic of the movies, whose siren call continues to lure audiences & filmmakers alike towards its warm glow.

Babylon isn't all bust, or even unwatchable, it is just overlong, overindulgent with nary a care...

Babylon is provocative, but, at the same time, it highlights what almost serves as a thematic watermark in Chazelle's filmography: choosing success often means choosing suffering or torture. [Full review in Spanish]

Unsure if my brain will ever fully heal from what Chazelle goes-for-broke with in the extended finale, but one thing is certain: audiences may very well never see anything like it ever again. Whether that’s for better or worse is up to the viewer...