For Damien Chazelle, the quest for perfection is nothing less than extreme. In seeking for ideal beat, attempting space travel, or realizing dreams in Hollywood, Chazelle's movies are populated with individuals who endure excessive physical and mental anguish to achieve their goals. "La La Land" marks Chazelle's sentimental, starry-eyed view of the film industry. “Babylon,” I suspect, is an extremely deliberate response to the critiques of that film. It is set in the lavish 1920s and captures how the timeless Hollywood images which seem magical, are actually crafted through tremendous effort, shattered aspirations, and an exorbitant amount of chance. In "Babylon," multiple sequences illustrate the staggering effort that is required for as little as two seconds of film. For example, a wide shot of dozens of extras waiting to be filmed as part of a single-camera shot and the painstaking efforts put towards achieving perfection in sound recording. Those two excellent scenes remind us that none of this is easy, even if it all looks effortless and a lot of fun.

Does this all make sense? Now, that is the hard question to ask. It seems like Chazelle pays attention to everything while saying that this version of landing on the moon is worth the trip. Alas, he takes his characters and the viewers on a journey filled with hatred, and utter misanthropy which makes it hard to believe him. Babylon is a movie that has stunning parts. Both individual scenes, performances, and tech elements. However, ‘Chazelle’ as the magic touch needed to honestly put them together seems to elude him. There is something to be said about a film being so robustly unapologetic and incredibly careless as well. But as astonishing and worse off as all the rotting, decaying outsiders who are consumed by the Hollywood machineos blindly obeying it turns out to be, they walking away from the film feeling thoroughly duped. One might argue that’s intentional—rare is the “feel bad” Hollywood movie, but still! It’s all the difference between deceptively pulling back the curtain, only to rub your face in large piles of elephant dung.

So begins “Babylon," which welcomes us to Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a Mexican-American in Los Angeles during the waning days of the silent film era. He is trying to get an elephant to a Hollywood party—an absolutely drugged-up and sex-obsessed soiree that Hollywood didn’t even dare to whisper about back in the day. Chazelle uses the orgiastic bacchanal to introduce his players, such as a wannabe actress named, quite perfectly, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), who Manny notices just as her star is about to rise. Also introduced is suave Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a silent film star who is about to cap a third marriage, only to be hit by the fickle finger of fame as talkies come into play, and the era of new stars eclipses him. There’s a jazz trumpet player name Sidney (Jovan Adepo), and barely sketched cabaret singer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li). Gossip writer Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) covers the action as slighter parts are filled by Lukas Haas, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, Jeff Garlin, and even Flea who are later recognizable faces.

It is without a doubt an ace ensemble with Pitt, once again giving a fearless performance, and a star making turn from Calva, but it is Pitt who stands out the most. He portrays a sense of lost glory which at times, feels almost too personal. For over thirty years, Pitt has been a star—he has witnessed legends like Jack Conrad come and go, and his performance is filled with a memerosble sadness that gives the film the depth it lacked in a few places.

Chazelle, in this case, tries to build up the sessions on the journeys of the outsiders as Manny, Sidney, and Nellie do not comprehend the outer world’s mechanisms. which regards them less than the equipment needed for shooting the films. The famous Jack Conrad will find out, too, how many legends can be considered disposable. Each one of them gets accepted as a major power player, to some extent—Nellie commands the screen like few other actresses, save for Robbie who could do so convincingly; Sidney's songwriting career is on the rise as sound takes over the talkies; Manny has his reputation as one of the brighter people on a set, and his increasing number of decisions attests to that. There is a rather shallow love subplot between Manny and Nellie, but that is not what captures the focus of the picture. It is not about romance – rather about the love for the movies and the history of Hollywood, which certainly overspills with a rich mix of true and fabricated details. It is evident that Chazelle did a whole lot of research.

And, even now, it seems as though the filmmaker’s dedication was what propelled his team of artisans forward. The cinematography of Linus Sandgren is smooth and gives the film much of its driving force—his shots, though rarely ostentatious, are always forward-moving. Perhaps the most impressive part of the year is Justin Hurwitz’s score, which provides the film’s themes for the characters in a way that makes the whole work more operatic—one of the many aspects that serve this story’s dark mood and tragic endings. The lines of surrealism and reality in the movie’s production design are both authentic and exaggerated at the same time. The intercutting stories are sometimes a little too much for the brilliant editor Tom Cross, but that’s a function of Chazelle’s sometimes meandering script rather than of the editing room.

About that script. "Babylon" tests whether a movie can be total of its beautiful parts. Wonderful music, an incredible cast, and great cinematography—everything is there. Still, “Babylon” possesses narrative elements that feel empty from the start and become even more so as Chazelle attempts to shove some hackneyed morality lessons during the final scenes. “Babylon” is the kind of film that out of nowhere could become decisively caustic and scornful, and yet, I found it cynical in the sense that it’s trying to cheaply manipulate viewers into believing the ‘isn’t it all worth it’ sentiment the audience knows is coming during the final act. Fans of this film seem to be rejoicing over this ending, but to me, this was the most unanchored part of Chazelle’s work.

It feels as if Chazelle is hinting at the idea that we don’t get “Singin' in the Rain” without the collateral damage that comes from silent to talkies transition in cinema, and isn't it marvelous we received that film? That, in itself, is a rather pessimistic and shallow interpretation of filmmaking. He thinks he is peeling back the layers of a broken industry, yet in the end reveals himself to be part of that distorted system. It’s as if he doesn’t want to think too deeply about how his cherished art form will consume its idealists, so long as his raucous celebration continues.