Babies (2010)
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 108
Fresh: 74 | Rotten: 34
Babies is a joyous celebration of humankind that's loaded with adorable images, but it lacks insight and depth.
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 6
Babies is a joyous celebration of humankind that's loaded with adorable images, but it lacks insight and depth.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 34,584
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Movie Info
Filmmaker Thomas Balmes offers an adorable glimpse at the first phase of life in this film following four newborn babies through their first year of life. Ponijao, Bayar, Mari, and Hattie were born in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and California, respectively. By capturing their earliest stage of development on camera, Balmes reveals just how much we all have in common, despite being born to different parents and raised in different cultures. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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All Critics (108) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (74) | Rotten (34)
The movie is pleasing -- who doesn't love gurgling babies? -- but as anodyne as a series of episodes from America's Funniest Home Videos.
Top CriticPresents itself as an ethnographic meditation on the first year of life but is better approached as an "oooooh" and "awww" fest...
Really, it's a nature documentary, except that the topic is human nature and the subjects are the only humans on the planet whose behaviour is unaffected by the camera.
Blessed with no narration, an absence of gimmickry and an embracing love for its subject matter, Babies is as sweet, joyful and filled with curiosity as a you-know-what.
Babies begins to gain telling traction as the small triumphs start to come faster toward the sixth-month mark. Things begin to look up once the infants begin to, well, look up.
Watch a baby for a while and chances are you'll be entertained. Multiply that times four and you have BabiesM/em>, a documentary as funny, charming and un-self-conscious as its subjects.
Hopefully next time Balmes makes a documentary, he'll have more of a purpose in mind, because without it, he's simply not giving his audience any reason to care.
If not falling head over heels for a film that is literally just 80 minutes of cute babies makes me a grump, so be it.
On a scale of one to a hundred (one featuring no babies at all, and a hundred featuring all the babies in all of existence) this film could still only be classified as 'babies'.
We realise this is humanity at its most homogenous; we begin to go separate ways only when our surrounding culture shoves us into its own strictures
With deft editing, we journey back and forth sharing the first 12 months with each child. What impact does the environment have on each baby? That is the intriguing question and as we observe and decide for ourselves
Inaugura um novo gênero: o do "filme-awwwwww".
It won't make a dent in the box office and it can hardly be considered essential viewing, but it's serene, unpretentious, and boasts more than enough cute moments to justify its existence. Parents, I imagine, will love it.
A simple idea, but very nicely done by French documentarian Thomas Balmès.
The intimate footage draws attention to the obvious contrasts between plenty and poverty.
Director Thomas Balmès has a hands-off and words-off style of direction. It's to be welcomed. We all know the sort of thing mums and dads say to babies, so subtitles would be extraneous.
The baby stars were given the go ahead to improvise every scene. The magic came in the editing suite (Raymond Bertrand, Craig McKay).
...an absolutely interminable piece of work that seems destined to send most viewers into protracted fits of daydreaming.
It has cute kids and cute animals, mothers and fathers interacting in interesting ways, and a demonstration of some cultural differences, too.
Because of the inherent adorability of the four stars of this French documentary, it's easy to forgive it for not delivering as much as it should.
Because of the inherent adorability of the four stars of this French documentary, it's easy to forgive it for not delivering as much as it should.
Precious as all get out...but it cries out for more insight and inspiration.
This isn't a movie. It's a screensaver.
More like a home movie than a feature length film.
When forced to watch home movies %u2014 and this is simply a glorified home movie %u2014 most of us nod and smile and start checking our watches.
A beautiful and entirely embraceable bit of cinema, and a welcome break from the pablum normally served up at theaters this time of year.
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Foreign Titles
- Babys (DE)
- Bébés (FR)
Good documentary! The film, stands on its own as a joyous celebration of the first year of life for four youngsters in different parts of the world. Filmed without narration, subtitles, or any comprehensible dialogue, Babies is a direct encounter with four babies who stumble their predictable ways to participating in the awesome beauty of life.Needless to say, their experience of the first year of life is vastly different, yet what stands out is not how much is different but how much is universal as each in their own way attempts to conquer their physical environment.Though the language is different as well as the environment, the babies cry the same, laugh the same, and try to learn the frustrating, yet satisfying art of crawling, then walking in the same way.You will either find Babies entrancing or slow moving depending on your attitude towards babies because frankly that's all there is, yet for all it will be an immediate experience far removed from the world of cell phones and texting, exploring up close and personal the mystery of life as the individual personality of each child begins to emerge. This documentary is not for everyone, I work with kids in these ages so I loved it.
Everybody loves...'Babies'. This visually stunning new movie simultaneously follows four babies around the world - from first breath to first steps. From Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, 'Babies' joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all.