I'm Tired of My Favorite Drama Being Ignored – It Has 52% on RT, but Deserves All 100%
When it was released in 2022, it bombed at the box office and didn't win any major awards, but it's one of the most striking, beautiful, and heartfelt declarations of love for cinema ever made.
One of the biggest TV hits right now is The Studio on Apple TV+, a series about the underbelly of a movie studio that pokes fun at Hollywood mores. It couldn't help but remind me of another standout project that may be the most underrated movie of the 21st century.
In 2022, Damien Chazelle took a risk and created an ode to early cinema and the world of Hollywood's ups and downs – Babylon.
What Is Babylon About?
Babylon opens with a masterfully shot scene of a big party somewhere in Los Angeles. There, the three main characters meet: the soon-to-be successful producer Manny, the future film star Nellie, and the popular Hollywood actor Jack.
In addition to their passion for cinema, the characters are united by relentless ambition and an almost manic thirst for recognition.
Each will be used and mercilessly spat out by the dream factory, loved and rejected by the world they lived for. Each will have their moment of glory and their own personal sad ending, but none of them will ever regret the choice they made.
Babylon Was Both a Commercial and Critical Flop
Babylon was a disastrous box office flop – it grossed $64 million on a $78 million budget, received mixed reviews from critics, and missed out on major awards. The film only won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's regular composer.
This is the greatest injustice this century, and I will die on this hill. Chazelle's failure is not the first time in the history of cinema that the industry has slapped an arrogant auteur on the wrist, but it is very telling.
Babylon Was Too Unconventional a Work to Become a Hit
Once a director makes a name for himself with small but incredibly commercially successful films – Whiplash made back its budget 16 times, La La Land 15 times – viewers begin to lose interest in their more expensive and uncompromising projects.
If Whiplash and La La Land were about success and break up, Babylon digs much deeper. The movie is not about old Hollywood, but about the nature of cinema in general.
Babylon Is One of the Greatest Love Letters to Cinema Ever Created
Who needs a three-hour drama about old Hollywood in 2022? It turns out only Chazelle and a handful of other cinephiles. But the power of Babylon is that it is the most sweeping three hours in the history of cinema.
Chazelle is a great storyteller – no worse than James Cameron. The only problem is that his movie is not Avatar, although Avatar is mentioned in Babylon when Chazelle decides to talk about the history of cinema in a completely stunning finale.
This movie is about an empire of emotion and passion – and the name of that passion is cinema. Babylon is such a sincere, tender, disarming declaration of love for cinema that it is impossible to resist.
Babylon is not a success story about a group of outsiders who achieve success, but a tragedy about time slipping away. Babylon is a movie that elevates art above life, making it the only and perhaps most worthy goal of human existence.
