Written last March: “Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is crazy and cranked up to 10 or 11 and at times rather extreme and orgiastic and almost Salo-like in one or two respects…it isn’t mad and indulgent and wicked in itself, of course, but it certainly uses a kind of Vincente Minnelli-meets-Fellini Satyricon-type paintbrush. Call it a flamboyant, envelope-pushing, 185-minute version of Singin’ In The Rain with the songs and dancing and smiles taken out. Or a depravity-tinged survival story about Hollywood transitioning from the silent era to sound, although ultimately spanning three decades (mid 1920s through 1952).”
