Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.
Preston Barta // Features Editor
Watching Damien Chazelle’s Babylon may be as close as we’ll get to seeing a blown-out version of the “tunnel of terror” sequence in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Instead of face-crawling bugs and decapitated chickens flashing on the screen, you’ll witness a rat-eating muscle man, Eyes Wide Shut parties, and enough early Hollywood chaos to choke on. It’s a spectacular (and hilarious) trainwreck you can’t turn away from.
Set during the transitional period of silent filmmaking to talkies, Chazelle’s unhinged B-side to his Oscar-winning La La Land traces the rise and fall of a slew of characters (a dynamite Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Dalva, to name a few) with outsized ambitions and wild lifestyles. And I mean wild! The first few minutes of Babylon will make you question if this film was truly directed by the same storyteller who captured Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dancing around a “city of stars.”
Rather than dig back into the days of dreamers and tremendous stardom, Chazelle takes us through the backdoor, Goodfellas style, to shine a spotlight on its depravity. So much blood, sweat and tears went into shaping cinema’s tallest artistic mountains, and here we are examining the contents that history swept under the rug.
If you look beyond the surface shocks, disturbances and crazy antics (just wait for Tobey Maguire’s unforgettable part) – you’ll uncover some Kubrickian-level genius. While the sight of snake fights and car crashes may hold a road flare up to your attention, your brain and heart will plug into the tangents between the notes where you get thoughtful and chewy dialogue, like: “While your time may be done, you’ll spend an eternity with angels and ghosts.”
So, brace yourselves for a thoroughly compelling extravaganza of human wickedness. Chazelle’s work will cause you to rethink the way you approach and take in art. It’s one of the year’s very best films.
Q&A
Ahead of the film’s release this weekend in theaters, Fresh Fiction recently had the opportunity to sit down with Chazelle in Dallas. In our below video interview, we discuss the soul tax of creation and the musicality across Chazelle’s filmography. Enjoy!
