The film, which is released on Wednesday in France and Belgium, recreates for 3:09 the Hollywood of the 1920s, at a time when sound begins to appear, condemning the silent world to oblivion.

Some former glories could then be dismissed overnight, drowning their despair in drugs and alcohol.

"Babylon" intersects three destinies, inspired by stars of the time: Brad Pitt, all in self-mockery, camps an established actor whose star begins to fade, Margot Robbie ("The Wolf of Wall Street", "Once upon a time in Hollywood") as a rookie actress propelled to the front of the stage and the newcomer Diego Calva, as an ingenuous who finds himself somewhat by chance behind the camera.

On screen, the lives of stars are punctuated by insane parties and shootings as anarchic as they are hectic, while their world crumbles.

American actor Brad Pitt at the premiere of the film "Babylon", January 12, 2023 in London © ISABEL INFANTES / AFP

The film is both "a love letter to cinema and, at the same time, a letter of hatred or criticism to the industry", willingly racist and sexist, declared Damien Chazelle to AFP, during an interview in Paris.

"The California Sun"

Pushing the aesthetics and attention to detail of "La La Land" even further, Chazelle organizes the last stand of silent cinema in a fireworks display of violence, sex, drugs and love.

With a rawness that we are not necessarily used to seeing in big Hollywood productions: mountains of cocaine, unbridled sexuality but also a memorable elephantine diarrhea...

"Babylon", which is part of the tradition of films that revisit the history of the 7th art - from "Singing in the rain" to "The Artist" via "Once Upon a Time.... in Hollywood" by Tarantino and "A Star is Born" --, to which he pays homage, is also full of nostalgia.

Australian actress Margot Robbie at the premiere of the film "Babylon", January 12, 2023 in London © ISABEL INFANTES / AFP

It shows how the arrival of "talkies" - with recorded dialogue - and great societal and technological changes have transformed Los Angeles, a city that had just been built in the Californian desert, and the souls who live, including a scene where the actress played by Margot Robbie tries to record her first "talking" film.

A Hollywood of yesteryear that Chazelle told AFP that he had recreated in the still preserved surroundings of the City of Angels, "to find what existed before, to feel the desert, the California sun, the old film sets... It entered us!".

On the way to the Oscars

To his actors, the director made swallow hours of masterpieces of silent cinema, from Murnau to Gance via Griffith: "just the classics, to really appreciate what we have lost. Because I think that 'we have lost something very deep. (...) Since the arrival of sound, we may not have made films as sublime as that".

A nostalgia which also seems to have contaminated the stars of the film... even if there are "a lot less drugs today in Hollywood", noted Margot Robbie.

"Unfortunately, it's true!", joked Brad Pitt, after one of the very first screenings for the industry in the United States.

Mexican actor Diego Calva at the premiere of the film "Babylon", January 12, 2023 in London © ISABEL INFANTES / AFP

After "Whiplash" (2014) and "First Man: First Man on the Moon" (2018), but especially after the triumph and the Oscar harvest of "La La Land" (including the best director at only 32 years old for Chazelle and the best music for jazz by his accomplice Justin Hurwitz, who once again punctuates "Babylon"), will Chazelle once again reap the rewards?

It's not won in advance: multi-nominated for the Golden Globes, the film only left this first award ceremony of the season with the trophy for best film music.

© 2023 AFP