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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/mar/10/babeldom-review-documentary-paul-bush
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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| Babeldom – review | Babeldom – review |
| (4 months later) | |
| Bush's lecture on city life the world over (largely its horrors) begins impressively by filling the screen with Bruegel the Elder's painting of the Tower of Babel, its inhabitants semi-animated and shrouded in mist, and then goes on to talk portentously of the simultaneity of life and death, past and future in megalopolises. Two voices – one male, one female – talk flatly, humourlessly of the ever-expanding city, of artificial languages, anomie, entropy, conformity, much of it illustrated with animation derived from scientific research. There are occasional nuggets of useful information and striking insights, but it's mostly predictable pessimistic stuff, lacking anything humane (in the manner of say Julien Temple's recent film London: The Modern Babylon) or informed by Dickensian gusto. | Bush's lecture on city life the world over (largely its horrors) begins impressively by filling the screen with Bruegel the Elder's painting of the Tower of Babel, its inhabitants semi-animated and shrouded in mist, and then goes on to talk portentously of the simultaneity of life and death, past and future in megalopolises. Two voices – one male, one female – talk flatly, humourlessly of the ever-expanding city, of artificial languages, anomie, entropy, conformity, much of it illustrated with animation derived from scientific research. There are occasional nuggets of useful information and striking insights, but it's mostly predictable pessimistic stuff, lacking anything humane (in the manner of say Julien Temple's recent film London: The Modern Babylon) or informed by Dickensian gusto. |
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