Babies

 
    Babies are cute and squishy. They do silly things like suck on their own toes and babble. It's a pretty natural thing to like babies. I mean, sure, there are some people who don't care for the smells and sounds they make and there are a few scorned toddlers who are resentful of their baby siblings. And sure, there are those who are simply indifferent to babies. But generally, babies are a fairly inoffensive topic. Babies can, however, be an interesting topic. There are so many different aspects to the human experience. Child development is an important one. It's during this stage of our lives when the very beginning of enculturation occurs.When we learn our individual society's values and rules. Just imagine the possibilities of a documentary that follows the first stage of life for a child in four very different parts of the world. Babies doesn't seek out to make any cultural discoveries. Babies doesn't try to educate the masses either. No, Babies is about how babies are cute and squishy.



    Babies is a documentary presenting four babies from four parts of the world. Mari is from Tokyo, Hattie from San Fransisco, Bayar from Inner Mongolia, and Ponijao from Namibia. We have a pretty wide range of cultures here. Two babies are raised in wealthy cities and two from poor, rural areas. The film follows these babies from birth to their first steps. Le me repeat: the documentary follows the lives of the babies. They are essentially, the only characters. When we see the parents, we see them through the eyes of the babies. So, we see a lot of the adults from the neck down, especially their nipples, chests, and knees. Often, especially for Bayar, we don't see the adults at all. Hey, that poor woman has cows and her livelihood to concern herself with. So, Bayar gets tied to a bedpost for his spiteful toddler brother to tend to. When the parents speak, they aren't given subtitles, further emphasizing that they do not matter. We get to know only the babies.
  
    Anyone who has ever had kids or, like me, has friends and family with kids will find many of these scenes happily familiar. We watch as these babies basically, do what babies do best. It reminded me of watching home movies or having your friend show you baby pictures while telling you the back story. (Neither of which I mind in the least) For eighty minutes, we watch the babies be cute. I read on the synopsis on IMDB that French documentarian, Thomas Balmes was trying to show that people around the world aren't that different. That is a very romantic idea. I definitely recognized that aspect in the film. Isn't it better to accept and respect the differences amongst humanity than to force sameness on it? Either way, while the scenes did more comparing than contrasting, the differences among us still shined through. There was one set of scenes in particular that illustrated this. First, we saw Hattie playing as her mother discussed with a doctor the best sleeping position to prevent SIDS. We then cut away to a scene in which Ponijao is playing in the dirt and decides to chew on a rock. There is no judgment, just a difference.
  
     Of course, there was a lot of oohing and awing in the surprisingly crowded theater, but what I really noticed was how much discussion was going on in the theater. There was no narration in the film. No one had to tell us what Mari was feeling as she threw a fairly typical temper tantrum. No on educated us on ho or why Bayar's hut was built the way it was. We just watched. And discussed. It's easy to say that Babies lacks depth or that it was just going for cute. You wouldn't be wrong to agree with that, but I think this movie was really made for discussion amongst friends and family. As I've learned from going to school entirely online, learning doesn't always need to be lecture-based. You can learn plenty from discussion. So, I wouldn't toss Babies out as a fluffy documentary just yet.

    Now, to answer the question about whether you'll enjoy the movie or not. I did. I think people with babies in their lives would enjoy it. Babies is eighty minutes of cuteness. Any longer would have been overkill. The shots were stunningly beautiful, especially over the grassy hills of Mongolia. The film is a gleefully optimistic, sometimes naive, sometimes beautiful celebration of children everywhere. And who wouldn't be OK with that?