“La La Land” director Damien Chazelle takes you back to 1920s Hollywood with a star cast including Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt.
With the nostalgic film musical “La La Land”, US director Damien Chazelle delivered a lively homage to Hollywood in 2017. The sweet romance about a young actress and a jazz musician in what is now Los Angeles made Chazelle, then 32, the youngest-ever director’s Oscar winner. Now the prodigy follows up with another homage to the dream factory – but there are worlds in between.
“Babylon – Rush of Ecstasy” takes you back to early Hollywood in the 1920s, when the young film metropolis slid from the silent film era into the age of sound. Chazelle goes all out with lavish parties, lots of bare skin, bombastic film sets and decadent excesses. The more than three-hour screen excess rightly bears the subtitle “Intoxication of Ecstasy”.
Chazelle, who also wrote the screenplay, was able to win over a star ensemble. Brad Pitt plays an acclaimed movie star, Margot Robbie an aspiring starlet, Jean Smart a gossip columnist in search of scandalous stories, Tobey Maguire a perfidious underworld drug lord. Jovan Adepo becomes a trumpet virtuoso, Li Jun Li transforms into a mysterious cabaret singer. Olivia Wilde, Eric Roberts, Lukas Haas and musician Flea are also involved.
A promising newcomer
But right at the beginning of the film, Diego Calva, the actual main character, comes into action. The 30-year-old Mexican, Hollywood’s new discovery, plays a young immigrant trying his luck in the film metropolis. As a first hand job, he has to transport an elephant in a truck over a steep country road to a luxury villa as an attraction for a lavish party.
The excited animal empties its intestines with all its might – and director Chazelle lets it squirt ruthlessly over the actors and the screen. This is the still harmless foretaste of the following “Babylon” orgy with wild sex scenes, drug excesses, daring dreams and tragic crashes.
The year is 1926, and silent film star Jack Conrad (Pitt) is at the peak of his career. “I think what we have here in Hollywood is high art,” the charmer boasts with a smile. The disastrous end of the actor, who collapses at the triumph of the sound film, is already in the offing. Conrad is a fictional character inspired by then Hollywood great John Gilbert.
Nellie LaRoy (Robbie) throws herself into Hollywood’s glamor spectacle as a wild vamp and is discovered as a starlet. Robbie, who played up-and-coming actress Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’s Hollywood tribute Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), revs up rousingly in Babylon and just as captivatingly depicts the tragic fall when Nellie’s career dreams were dashed.
Golden Globes and Oscars
“Babylon” received five Golden Globe nominations. In the end, the film only won the award for the best film music: US composer Justin Hurwitz, who already won the Globe and Oscar for “La La Land”, heats up the action with a jazz score.
Chazelle’s “La La Land” was nominated for a sensational 14 Oscars in 2017 and was ultimately awarded six trophies. “Babylon” has a good chance when the Oscar nominations are announced on January 24, but this revealing satire is unlikely to be a winner. The US film censors have given the film the strict R stamp, young people under the age of 17 are only admitted when accompanied by adults.
“Babylon” is an unusual, complex declaration of love for Hollywood. Chazelle bombards the audience with groovy music, shrill scenes and weird characters. He occasionally goes too far with vulgarity, but behind all the exaggerated fuss his admiration and love for the beginnings of cinematic art are clearly felt.
Babylon – Rush of Ecstasy, USA 2022, 188 minutes, FSK from 12, by Damien Chazelle, with Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Tobey Maguire (dpa)