Hollywood

's biggest punching bag in 2022 has now dragged his shredded film body to Swedish cinema.

The auteur Damien Chazelle has since his breakthrough with the sweaty drummer film "Whiplash" worn the mantle as the savior of the American film in need of remakes.

The musical "La la land" and the moon landing work "First man", despite being quite wooden, put him on a stable pedestal.

But now when he comes with his Magnum opus the industry is queuing up to give it a spanking.

"Too tall, too fat, too thin" and the insanely expensive film has also bombed in theaters.

And of course

it's an uphill battle.

Just over three hours of mammoth scenes and parties where today's stars such as Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Jean Smart play the diton of the time.

It's big and lavish, a lot of film for the money - but more like a luxurious living than a rigorous story.

Like "La la land's" dirty big brother.

Where the latter lazes about in the spotlight of Hollywood nostalgia, "Babylon" wants to show the backside of the Dream Factory;

a Sodom and Gomorrah with decadent divas wallowing in sin and money without a thought for tomorrow.

Which, however, will come.

It is the late 1920s and the industry is facing a revolutionary time where you have to go from silent to talking films.

Old stars will fall, new ones will rise and so will the new moralism and effectively set P for the outer 20s.

So partly

the same story as in the musical classic "Singin' in the rain", but since it was made in the early 50s when the moral code lay like a puritanical blanket over the industry, it could not depict "sin".

"Babylon" does.

With lust.

At least for the first two hours, but then the drama starts to slide like the priest's little crow here and there.

Chazelle does not want to soil himself completely in the mire of decadence, instead delivering towards the end a eulogy to filmmaking, with images and clips from the birth of the medium until the present day.

A "darling" that Chazelle would have killed if he hadn't gotten so big that no one dared to question his judgment.

It's hard

to understand what Damien Chazelle is really trying to say, but it's an entertaining rambling nonetheless.

At least for those of us who can't get enough of depictions of Hollywood's rowdy teenage years.