Babies

The idea of the documentary "Babies" is as simple as it is ingenious. Over the course of a year, from birth to first step, the filmmakers follow four babies from different parts of the world.

There's Ponijao from Namibia, Bayar from Mongolia, Mari from Japan and little Hattie from the United States. While Ponijao and Bayar tend to discover life in simple surroundings far from civilization, Mari and Hattie learn the benefits (or, depending on how you look at it, drawbacks) of life in the big city. But as different as the babies' circumstances may be, it becomes clear time and again that, especially in early childhood, there are still an incredible number of things in which all people are alike, no matter where they grow up.

"Babies" lives solely on its images. There is no commentary narrator and the parents are not allowed to comment on their cute offspring either. No, this film belongs solely to the babies and their first steps through the world. There are many moments that are just wonderfully funny, such as the way the babies interact with animals (it's fascinating to see how calmly cats and dogs take things in their stride). But also the sometimes quite absurd behaviour of the parents acting more in the background (especially of those in the big cities) provides plenty of amusement for the viewer.

The most pleasant thing, however, is that "Babies" does without the typical sentimentalities. The film is not as unbearably saccharine as one might have expected and feared from a film about cute babies. It is rather the naturalness of the shots, the warm-heartedness of the staging, the charm of the humor arising from the situations that makes this documentary so worth watching. Who has offspring, expects or plans, should not miss this film!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp