Babylon on M6: a sumptuous tragicomic fresco (review)

Damien Chazelle plunges back into the turbulent times of the transition from silent to talkies to create a thunderous portrait of Hollywood of the time, full of moments of bravery.

Four after its terrible and unfair flop, Babylon is broadcast for the first time unencrypted on French television, this Thursday evening on M6. Damien Chazelle’s epic film, starring Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Calva, only grossed $65 million at the worldwide box office, for a budget of $80 million. In France, however, it was a real success, with 1.5 million spectators in theaters, and impressed the editorial staff of Première (which had dedicated its cover to it). Our review:

A word of advice: don’t arrive late! Babylonthe fifth feature by Damien Chazelle, starts off flat-footed. And the good 45 minutes which precede the arrival of the title on the screen constitute a moment of dizzying bravery, a dive into the bacchanals of Hollywood in the 1920s. Chazelle recounts with a rawness rare for a Hollywood film of the 2020s, a decadence and a depravity totally assumed, while this world is preparing to change era with the transition from silent to talkies, reshuffling all the cards, propelling unknowns at the top and destroying the careers of stars who thought they were untouchable.