Why didn't someone think of this sooner? In the simplest terms, "Babies" asks
how a baby's first year of growth is affected by the culture that is the
accident of birth. This lovely documentary wanders quietly, an observer at a
distance, through that first year as mothers and their newborns get to know each
other in the languages and customs of their native lands.
French
documentary filmmaker Thomas Balmes has credited his inspired source: "based on
an original idea by Alain Chabat," an appropriate gesture if ever there was one.
But Mr. Balmes must take credit for the lovely soft hand he has laid on his
subjects. No voice over lecture tries to teach us about what we are watching; no
subtitles distract us from the magical, explosive first year of growth.
Every parent
in the audience will relate to the film through a personal lens, but let me
assure you most humbly that the elders among them will know that what they see
in these babies is likely to be a nearly perfect prediction of the adult to
come. If there is a universal lesson, it is that every baby is born with a full
set of character and personality traits. The acquisitive one can grow up to be a
bank robber or a bank president depending on environment, but acquisitive he
will be.
Filming took
three years of moving about through time zones and countries while needing to be
there when the rooster stood on the baby's crib rail or the goat drank from the
baby's bathwater. The filmmakers chose four widely spread locations: Mongolia (Bayargargal),
Namibia (Ponijao), Tokyo (Mari), and San Francisco (Hattie).
As much as we
may try not to judge families or cultures, it is hard not to blanch at the
sterility and force feeding of the American and Japanese modern ways of jump
starting their young in group activities. Watching the Mongolian and Namibian
segments leaves us reexamining modern privilege in the light of the natural play
and exploring of the children in simpler cultures. One watches the ants crawling
on his legs; another and his brother begin to crawl and head straight to the
rain puddles where they splash and drink. I have never been more grateful for
the absence of Wal-Mart.
In one of the
most memorable scenes, Ponijao imitates his older brother as he grinds and
pounds pebbles on a rock base as his mother does. The older boy, making great
progress toward the goal he has set, becomes fiercely resentful of the
intrusions of his little brother. This work is his alone. We laugh, knowing that
here it is: the bank president, or the bank robber. But what we know already is
that he is a hard worker who won't be distracted and that baby brother is right
behind him. For mothers, this first year in different languages in different
corners of the globe is achingly familiar and deeply poignant. A salute to
Thomas Balmes and Alain Chabat.
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