Babies

I utterly loved this movie. It was delightful enough in and of itself, but one of the things I appreciated about it is that it reminded me how powerful a movie can be.

The story is told simply. Director Thomas Balmes follows the lives of four real babies from four corners of the world, from birth to their first steps. There is very little dialogue, and the camera watches the babies quietly at floor level, and the results are delightful to watch.

There are three girls and a boy, from Mongolia, Africa, Tokoyo and San Francisco. It's mesmerizing to watch their first feedings, their surroundings, the beautiful, haunting landscapes, their first words, their first steps. All the little discoveries an infant makes are quietly recorded. The message is, babies thrive if they are loved, and the love we have for babies is universal in most circumstances. Hattie from San Francisco, with her well-to-do New Age parents, is no more or no less loved than the boy born on the steppes of Mongolia or the charming little girl from the grasslands of Africa. The babies are beautiful. Watching, you love each and every one of them, even for their tantrums and fusses and tumbles. It's inspiring how well babies adapt to their surroundings. The Mongolian boy is unbothered by the rooster on his bed, and make a play structure out of an overturned barrel in the middle of the cattle.

It was one of the most memorable and inspiring and joyous movies I have ever seen. Curiously, as much as I love movies we rarely see one in the theater, but I'm supremely glad we watched this one there, in the opulent and grand theater/palace at Bridgeport Regal Cinemas. The candy machine ripped me off a dollar, and I had to fill out a form to get it back. We found an all-night Subway for dinner.