Babies Everywhere!

A few weeks ago, while we we reading the paper, my roommate pointed to an add for a movie and said, "We should see this. It's like March of the Penguins, but with babies." So, naturally, I got together a group of friends to see Thomas Balmes' documentary Babies on its opening night. I didn't read anything about it, but I sure hyped it up in my mind. Cute babies, being babies, doing baby things, for 79 minutes! What could be better?! By last week, I was so excited I could think of nothing but Babies. Then, Friday night, all my hopes and dreams came true (Except for the hope and dream of a post graduation job, but I'll take what I can get in the hopes and dreams department).

Babies definitely lived up to the hype that may or may not surround it outside of my mind. The babies were adorable. Bayar, the baby from Mongolia, was particularly cute. It was also a beautifully shot film. The landscapes of Mongolia and Namibia are nicely contrasted to the sky lines of San Francisco and Tokyo, and all of the regions represented in the film were stunning. Babies has no narration or translation, so at times it can be frustrating to watch. There were things that I would have liked to learn more about. What was that red stuff that Ponijao's mom was rubbing on her pregnant belly, then later on Ponijao's head? Who were those other kids that Bayar was playing with? What's with Mari's baby leg warmers? There are a lot of things in the movie that go unexplained, but I think that it helped demonstrate the point that no matter what kind of culture a baby is raised in, there are some experiences that are universal.

The one critique that I have about the movie, one that was shared by everyone I went with, was that there were not a lot of loving scenes included for Ponijao and Bayar and their parents. In the ending credits, there were several clips of Ponijao's mother playing with her and singing to her, but few scenes like these were included in the actual movie. A lot of the time, it appeared as though Ponijao and Bayar were just left to their own baby devices. It seemed like their parents did not look after them. It sort of stigmatized their cultures as primitive and uncaring. I think it would have been smart to show some more loving scenes for these two kids.

Babies is 79 minute's worth of adorable babies doing adorable baby things. It's a pleasure to watch and it's more thought provoking than you might think. Check out the trailer here and then go see it as soon as you can.