Babylon

The first images of this film refer to a certain idea of the origins of the world: scraggy vegetation shaken up by a dusty wind, arid land marked by crevices and a furtive animal presence. This landscape is further away in time than in space. But after this tabula rasa, the frame fills with life, people, noises, tents and convoys. So begins the construction of a new world: an ephemeral city populated by people from different countries, speaking different languages. An improvised Tower of Babel where we witness the installation of a city, which is both a contemporary Dantesque purgatory and a mirror of our society. Without giving any hint of the location or wanting to use subtitles – which would paradoxically make the film more abstruse - the directors immerse the viewer directly and head-on into the whirlwind of this village, the boundaries of a world in the process of being built and being broken. In depicting this radical and universal experience, Babylon is also a portrait of humanity.

Jasmin Basic