MOVIE REVIEW: BABYLON (2022)

It’s hard to tell a movie is going to be great if the opening scene is a fat man arguing with another man with a Spanish accent in a deserted land, about carrying an elephant in his truck.

All faces we’re not familiar with.

However, soon the scene changes and familiar faces such as Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie show up.

But again, it’s not the faces or the acting that makes a movie great, it’s ‘WHAT SENSE IT MAKES’, and often, we can be unfortunate to miss that and so condemn a great movie to be pointless.

Let’s consider Babylon. Did it make any sense, or was it just a movie with great actors?

MOVIE PLOT

The movie was starred in Bel Air, in 1926 and tells a story about the evolution of Hollywood from making Motion Pictures to Talking Films. It features major characters Manuel Torres (Diego Calva), Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), Jack Conrad (Bradd Pitt), and Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo).

Manuel was a young Mexican man who wanted more other than being a mere servant to big time movie producer Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin), only he didn’t know this until he met the beautiful Nellie LaRoy.

Nellie believed she was a star, born for the movies. “You don’t become a star, you’re either one or you ain't,” she told Manuel on the first night they met at Don Wallach’s orgy party.

Manuel was enthralled, not just by her looks, but also by her wits and aura. She was a star and she proved it by acting brilliantly in her first movie role which she got by sheer luck.

To Manuel, that was a motivation to seek out his dream of being in a movie set more intentionally. And as though Don Wallach’s party ware a genie, he got his wish too that night after he drove the admirable Jack Conrad home.

Jack was a marvelous actor, a great friend, and a jerk, specifically to his wives who were all divorced from him. Without knowing Manuel, or his dreams, Jack helped him realize them when he asked Manuel to drive him to his movie set the next day after the party.

While Nellie continued being brilliant on stage and stealing voiceless shows, Jack figured ‘Talking Films’ was going to be the future. Don Wallach agreed with him, so arrangements were made to make his next film a Talking Film. It took a great deal and a dead man, but the vision was realized.

However, although Jack had been excited about Talking Films, he suffered a shakedown in his career as he soon learned that talking and acting at the same time was an art that required more than just talent. His first Talking Film did not get the reception any actor would hope for, it was the beginning of his end, more so that he lost his friend and manager George Munn (Lukas Hass) at that time.

Though he remained wealthy, he was unhappy and watched his star grow dim, as he only got movie roles from desperate producers who wanted to use his face only to sell their movies.

But it wasn’t just Jack who suffered the invention of Talking Films, Nellie did too. Although in her case, it was more of a mental instability situation than it was an acting problem because even in talking and acting, she was brilliant. Her problems were drugs and gambling.

Manuel on the other hand, watched behind the cameras, he listened to the actors and performers such as Sidney Palmer, a brown-skin-talented trumpet player, and soon he became a star in his own movie set, as an executive producer. He made Sidney a star also, by giving him his own film, and tried to revive Nellie’s career.

None of which lasted long because the movie industry had been hijacked by an autocratic society that had little regard for classical motion pictures, or they were just too enthusiastic about Talking Films.

Either way, the old cats were soon purged from Holywood, Jack killed himself, Sidney found himself playing at bars, Nellie got herself in a gambling fix, and dragged poor Manuel who did nothing but love her tirelessly down with her, and even when he proposed for them to be married in Mexico, she broke his heart after saying yes but leaving him.

And so the story of great stars ended, only to be remembered in newspapers after their death.

PERSONAL ANALYSIS

Babylon told a tale of the becoming of Hollywood, an experience, a reality our generation knows nothing about.

It vividly enacted the joys of actors when they were still stars in the industry, and their pains when their glory days end.

Like Elinor said to Jack “There’ll be hundred more Jack Cornrad…till God knows when. Because its bigger than you…but in a hundred years when you and I are both long gone, anytime someone throws a frame of yours through a sprocket, you’ll be alive again…one day every person on every film shot this year will be dead, and one day all those films will be brought in front of us, and all their ghost will dine together…a child born in fifty years will stumble upon your image flickering on a screen and he’ll feel he knows you like a friend, though you’ve breath your last before he breathe his last”.

We see exactly what she said happening over and over again as years pass. I’m in love with Elvis Persley, though I didn’t know him, and even you must have an ancient star you adore.

And just to add to what Elinor said, when the ancient stars see us portray what they did in their time, they’ll weep like Manuel in the last scene of Babylon, because they think we’re only making a mockery of their art, but soon, they’ll smile afterward like Manuel, because they’ve realized it’s a tribute to the work they did to bring us to this age and not a circus.

So did Babylon make any sense or was it just a movie with great actors?

For me, it was exceptional!