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Cast and CrewStarring: Ponijao, Bayar, Mari, Hattie
Director: Thomas BalmesProducers: Amandine Billot,
Alain Chabat and Christine Rouxel
Distributor: Focus Features
Genre: Documentary;
Languages: English, Japanese and
Mongolian-languages, subtitled
Rating: Rated PG for cultural and
maternal nudity throughout.
Running time: 80 min.
Release date: May 7 ltd.
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The Story:
Four countries and four babies, from birth to their very first steps.Their names are Ponijao, Bayarjargal, Mari and Hattie, and they live in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the United States.
BABIES invites us simultaneously into four very different cultures, capturing the
funniest, most carefree and moving moments, those unique and universal incidents of the first few months in our lives.An hour and a half of adventure, action, humor and tumbles…
By Steven D. Greydanus:
Everyone should see Babies. Even people who have cats instead of children should see Babies. There are a number of cats in this movie, and some feline moments that must be seen to be believed, especially for cat lovers.
Directed by documentary filmmaker Thomas Balmès, who lives in Paris with his wife and three children, Babies is pro-life in the best possible sense: It is a celebration of new life, of love, of family, of the wonder of the world.
It is not a Hallmark card. Balmès daringly opens with a startling, almost nerve-wracking extended shot of a quarrel between two African babies that involves crying, biting and slapping. It is a dispute over playthings. There is almost nothing to play with in the Namib desert, but there you go. The younger one gets violent first, but the moment she starts crying herself the older one is satisfied. Indifferent to her tears, he returns to his occupation, which involves grinding two rocks together. He doesn’t want the disputed item at the moment, he just doesn’t want her to have it.
Babies takes us to four corners of the world — from darkest San Francisco to the desert steppes of Mongolia, where nomadic shepherds dwell in yurts; from Tokyo, Japan to the desert of Namibia where stone-age life goes on — into four households welcoming four babies with love and joy.
This reflects a creative choice by the director: All babies are like these babies, but not all families are like these families. Not every child is loved, but every child needs and deserves love. “Happy families are all alike,” wrote Tolstoy in Anna Karenina; “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” How alike are the four households in this movie? About as different as happy families can be.
Hattie in San Francisco is an only child, as is Mari in Tokyo, though her grandparents seem to figure notably in her life. Bayar in Mongolia has an older brother, and Ponijao in Namibia is surrounded by siblings, including a grown woman with a baby (the big-brother figure from that opening shot is actually Ponijao’s nephew).
Hattie leans on her father’s bare chest, eyes and mouth wide with delight at the stream of water from the showerhead. Bayar bathes in a metal tub in the doorway of the yurt, and is unfazed when a goat cranes its neck through the doorway to gulp water from the tub. Ponijao might never bathe in water: Her mother washes her baby and herself with a red ochre compound mixed from clay and broken rocks; she also licks dust and sand from the baby’s eyes and spits it out.
Balmès records such quotidian moments of human and ethnographic interest with subtle artistry. His camera sits low, offering a baby’s-eye view of the world. Adult bodies loom large, and heads are often offscreen, creating compositions of anonymous universality. There is a wonderful shot of Ponijao’s mother at work framed by the body and legs of a large dog; off in the corner of the shot, the dog and the baby curiously lick one another’s tongues.
The low-angle perspectives take full advantage of the wide-open landscapes and distant horizons of the desert locations, filling the screen with miles of sky. I love a shot of Bayar standing in a stroller under a magnificent evening sky — and the unexpected punchline that brings us with a jolt back to earth.
Some of my favorite documentaries, as regular readers may know, immerse us in the world of their choosing without voiceover narration or any other imposition. Babies is like that. Other than establishing the names of the babies and their locations, there are no subtitles or other narrative intrusion. We understand no more of what Mari’s parents say than Mari herself would — and we don’t need to. Sometimes watching Hattie’s story I wished I didn’t understand English. That would be the best way to watch Babies: not knowing any of the languages.
Babies are funny, and there is a lot of humor in Babies. Sometimes you smile and wince at the same time. Possibly the most memorable sequence intercuts between Mari and Bayar, as Mari struggles to make some blocks do something she knows they’re supposed to do; when she can’t, her frustration and anguish know no bounds. Then there’s Bayar almost chortling with all the glee of a baby getting into something he suspects he’s not meant to have. In a parental trick viewers may remember from The Story of the Weeping Camel, he has been left tethered to the yurt’s support column, but on this occasion the cord wasn’t quite short enough.
Bayar’s relationship with his older brother Degi, who’s about three, is a cause of more wincing, as when Degi flails at his brother with a cloth and even experiments with exiling him from the household when the parents aren’t watching. On at least one occasion it’s a parent who gets smacked — and the mother’s gently didactic response might occasion as much wincing as anything else. Then there’s Hattie’s entirely understandable escape attempt from her music program during a dippy New-Age ditty about Mother Earth taking care of us.
Western parents with their hygiene and safety consciousness may find the rough-and-tumble of third-world parenting either unsettling or comforting. In California, Hattie’s mother parses the ambiguous relationship between sleeping position and SIDS; in Africa, Ponijao finds a rock in the dust and tries to eat it. Then there’s Bayar’s run-in with a cow. Many parents find that they relax a little after the first couple of kids; watching Babies could help, too.
Other cultural differences are worth pondering from different points of view. The urban babies are quickly weaned to bottles; the African babies are nursed well into toddlerhood. The simplicity of the Mongol and Himba peoples may raise questions, too, about all the paraphernalia that expectant parents are taught to consider necessary. Is it really necessary to register for travel systems, wipe warmers and a Diaper Genie?
Babies is rated PG for “cultural and maternal nudity throughout.” In other words, it is about families made up of people who have bodies. If your children have bodies, and are aware that other people do too, I see no real reason they can’t see this movie.
When 101 Dalmatians came out, everybody wanted a Dalmatian. After Finding Nemo, families headed to the pet shop in search of clown fish. Here is a movie that will leave viewers with babies on the brain. Babies opens on Mother’s Day weekend. I predict new arrivals starting around February 2011.
Babies Movie Review:
The rulebook for bearing babies-especially in the States-is longer than the Bible, and it grows every year. In fact, after the Bible, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care claims to be the second highest selling book of all time. (In truth, it’s edged out by Chairman Mao and Dan Brown, but still trumps J.K. Rowling.) Even so, this documentary on one of the most universal, photographed, analyzed, opined upon and slavered over human experiences manages to astound. French filmmaker Thomas Balmes has hit a box office homerun with Focus Features’ gambit, releasing Babies on Mother’s Day. We’ve all had, been or been married to a mom, and buying a pair of tickets is a better gift than a box of chocolates.
Here’s the scope of the project: Balmes scouted expectant families in San Francisco, Mongolia, Tokyo and Namibia. Once his new stars-three girls and a boy-popped out, he spent the next two years as the families’ silent, camera-toting uncle. The footage he captured is astounding: Mari in Japan weeps with confusion when she can’t understand geometry blocks, but resolutely tries to shove a circle into a square; Bayar in Mongolia braves a stampede of cows; Ponijao (now the second-most famous baby born in Namibia) first discovers that boys and girls have different parts.
Our perspective is adamantly 18-inches tall. Parents flit by like babbling bodies-even Hattie’s English-speaking parents seem to buzz with white noise-and have themselves chopped into pieces by Balmes’ baby-centered camera. Nameless, they appear in chunks: a breast, a knee, an arm.
In the best way, Babies is like being born again into confusion. Why is calligraphy written on Mari’s feet? Why is Hattie’s first view a hospital bed with tubes? Who are the eight other children buzzing around Ponijao? We don’t know, and we won’t know, and that’s Balmes’ big idea. He wordlessly reminds us of wonder. Those of us old enough to have to pay full price admission need a refresher course.
But as we watch these four very similar children navigate four wildly different homesteads, our mind tries to anchor itself by clutching to our own rulebook. Mothers-in-law have always claimed to know best, but lately it seems our culture has become one of simpering busybodies. Part of the pleasure of watching Babies is realizing that your kids aren’t doomed if they don’t eat 100 percent organic-they aren’t even doomed if, like Ponijao, they down a fistful of dirt. But we aren’t hard on Ponijao’s mother. In fact, we’re hardest on the San Franciscans and their insistence on doing everything right. In one scene, they tote Hattie (even the name is precious) to a tribal drum circle to worship mother earth. (When Hattie bolted desperately for the door, there were sniggers of schadenfreude in the theater-myself included.)
The trap is that we’re as eager to judge as the kids are to explore. Balmes gives us scope and cultural perspective, and we have to fight not to digest it as practical vs. doting, chores vs. yoga, siblings vs. educational toys and, most sweepingly, indoor security vs. outdoor scenery. But this beautiful film with its postcard scenery deserves to be seen with young eyes. Everyone tells you how to raise a kid-this doc shows you how to feel like one. Leave adult neuroses in the lobby.
The film follows 4 babies from different parts of the world during their first year of life: Ponijao from Namibia, Mari from Tokyo, Bayar from Mongolia and Hattie from the USA. Quite often, this means setting up the camera, focusing on the tyke, and recording him or her doing something cute. This is pure cinema verité: there are no interviews with parents or relatives, nothing to give the audience any extra insight into these babies’ lives and futures.
While one may not agree with W.C. Fields’ statement, “I like children . . . fried,” there are times while watching this documentary when one sees the old reprobate’s point. Balmes’ biggest mistake is thinking these tykes’ antics will sell the movie on its own. While the babies do have their charms, it’s not enough to sell 80 minutes worth of film.
Babies isn’t without merits. There are some interesting juxtapositions, especially the differences between the 4 kids’ societies: Hattie gets to shower with her dad while Ponijao . . . let’s just say saliva is involved and leave it at that. There are also some unintentionally hilarious scenes where a Japanese music appreciation instructor gets a little over-the-top with little Mari, or Hattie does yoga with her mom.
Speaking of unintended comedy, you could just imagine Bayar and Ponijao’s parents snickering with laughter when they see Hattie’s mom’s meditation class, where a New Age type natters on about how “Mother Earth protects and nurtures us all . . .”
While all 4 kids may reside on Planet Earth, they are clearly living in different worlds.
Babies a Real Snooze
Saying you dislike a film featuring babies is like admitting you like to kick puppies. Nevertheless, Thomas Balmes and Focus Features presumes that filmgoers will be too busy going, “D’awww” at the adorable munchkins on the screen to notice the lack of any substance.
Babies will only appeal to those whose idea of a good time is poring over Anne Geddes’ photographs. Anyone else will eventually find themselves channeling W.C. Fields or Ebenezer Scrooge. It gets a 2/5.
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