Review: Babies

Documentaries are tricky things to make. The subject has to be interesting enough for mass appeal while at the same time offering something new. If you get too objective, people are turned off. If you don't edit your film in a way that creates a story that people want to follow, they'll get bored.

At it's surface, Babies, a new documentary from filmmaker Thomas Balmes, sounds intriguing, but not necessarily fascinating or worthy of your time. In essence, the film is about the first year of four babies' lives, all of them from different places in the world.

Already from that premise you start to lose people who don't like kids or hear the word and think "screaming kid on the airplane/in the movie theater".

So the question remains-is Babies worth your time and money, even if you fall into said category? Read on to find out...

The film follows four babies over the first year of their life. There's Ponijao, a boy from a tiny village in Namibia; Mari, a girl who lives in a high-rise in the heart of Tokyo; Bayar, a boy from a yurt on the plains of Mongolia; and Hattie, a girl from San Francisco.

The film begins with or near the birth of each child, and right away the fascinating cultural differences appear. Hattie lies with her mother in the hospital, while Bayar is wrapped tightly in a blanket and carried in his mother's arms as she sits on the back of a motorcycle and his father drives them home from the nearest town back to their yurt.

From there, we watch as each child grows, from being carried on their mother's backs to their first steps. I don't want to spoil some of the great moments that happen along the way (they're hard to describe without seeing it anyway), but the film paints a fascinating look at different culture just through child rearing. Ponijao walks around with nothing but a loin cloth on (no diapers!) and is always seen playing in the dirt and with the grazing animals, while Mari goes to group day cares and is read to by her mother.

Undoubtedly, the most interesting aspect of the film is the way it's done. There is no narration, no interviews, and the parent's different languages are not subtitled. The camera takes a "fly on the wall" perspective, which provides for moments that are longer but intriguing (for example, a particularly funny sequence that shows each child playing with the family cat). While this can make the film seem to drag at points, it greatly succeeds in keeping the focus on the babies themselves: in this way, watching them grow is a very enjoyable journey. 

The film is at the same time funny, heartwarming, and interesting. The arc of the babies' first year is well put together using segments involving similar moments in their growth.

The bottom line is, Babies is worth checking out, even if you only think of them as drooling, crying little people that can ruin your flight. Who knows-maybe the next time you've got a little bundle of joy behind you on the plane, you'll have taken a warming to them.

Grade: B