Everything Must Change
Babylon is one of the most divisive films of the decade.
Film: Babylon (2022)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Tobey Maguire, et al.
Some see indulgence.
Some see chaos.
Others see a three-hour exercise in excess that mistakes spectacle for substance.
I understand every one of those criticisms.
And yet, I walked away believing something very different.
Beneath all the noise, Babylon was about more than just Hollywood.
It’s about change.
The opening hour feels almost impossible to contain.
Bodies collide.
Music overwhelms.
Dreams are born and destroyed in the same breath.
It’s exhilarating.
It’s exhausting.
It’s alive.
At first, the chaos feels like the point.
Later, I realised it was only the setting.
The real story begins when the world refuses to stay the same.
History has a habit of moving forward without asking our permission.
Silent film became sound.
Studios became corporations.
Stars became forgotten names.
Entire ways of creating were left behind.
Every character responds differently.
Some reinvent themselves.
Some fight reality.
Some slowly disappear trying to preserve a version of themselves that no longer belongs in the world they’ve inherited.
That struggle feels remarkably familiar.
Because very few of us experience dramatic endings.
Most of us experience quiet transitions.
A career changes.
A relationship ends.
Children grow.
Dreams evolve.
One day we simply realise the person we’ve been trying to protect no longer quite fits the life we’re living.
The instinct is always the same.
Hold on tighter.
Protect what once made us valuable.
Preserve what once felt familiar.
But Babylon suggests something else entirely.
Art has never stood still.
Neither do we.
The people who endure aren’t necessarily the most talented.
They’re often the ones willing to become someone new.
Perhaps that’s why the ending affected me so deeply.
It’s less interested in nostalgia, than gratitude.
It reminds us that every chapter eventually becomes someone else’s history.
That doesn’t diminish its importance.
It proves it mattered.
The goal isn’t to remain unchanged.
The goal is to let every version of ourselves contribute to the next.
Beyond the Frame
The films that stay with me rarely answer every question.
Instead, they quietly change the questions I’m asking myself.
Babylon reminded me that growth almost always carries grief alongside it.
Every new beginning asks us to leave something behind.
Perhaps that’s the price of becoming who we’re meant to be.
I’ve been capturing some of these reflections more regularly over on Letterboxd under The Resonance Impact.