Expat Cinema: Babylon

From Damien Chazelle, BABYLON is an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, with an ensemble cast including Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li and Jean Smart. A tale of outright ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood. Damien (‘La La Land’) Chazelle’s sprawling, epic look back at Hollywood in the decadent 1920s—just as the coming-of-sound earthquake was about to turn things upside down—revels in the hedonistic lifestyles of the day by focussing on three characters: suave superstar Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt, in delicious form), rising wannabe Nelly LaRoy (Margot Robbie), and the thoughtful, ambitious Mexican immigrant Manny Torres (Diego Calva), first hired as Jack’s assistant. They work hard by day and party hard by night, and Chazelle pulls out all the stops to capture the sybaritic lives of these mad dreamers. ‘Similarly to his characters, Chazelle has embraced excess as a guiding principle in “Babylon,” and like his film “La La Land,” this one shifts between intimate interludes and elaborate set pieces, one difference being that Chazelle now has a heftier budget and is eager to show off his new toys… Chazelle isn’t terribly invested in historical accuracy. Instead, with “Babylon” he has whipped up a Hollywood counter history that focuses on the era’s putative excesses and rebuts (and luxuriates in) the industry’s carefully sanitized, high-minded profile.”—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times Special preview with English subtitles