Leave it to the French to develop such a wonderfully weird and simple idea: shoot a wildlife documentary, in which the animals are babies. Producer Alain Chabat, who won a Cesar for Didier, created the concept? Thomas Balmes, the screenwriter and director, trained the camera on the four subjects. Then he let them get on with their lives.
The babies in Babies are from vastly different families. One is from the Himba tribe and lives in a hut in Namibia. One lives in the steppes of Mongolia in a yurt, surrounded by animals. One lives in small apartment in Tokyo in the middle of the city. One lives in San Francisco with her professor and cinematographer mother and father.
No dramatic voiceover. No interviews interrupting the action. We see the babies exploring, eating, singing, crying, raging and learning.
Every parent knows just alien these little creatures are, as they try to decipher our world. You expect a film like this to deliver poignancy and heart-stirring moments by the nappyful. What surprised me was how funny it is. You will laugh out loud.
The film is premie-sized: a mere 76 minutes. But you’ll find no better reason to turn off that rerun of The Mentalist or The Hotel Inspector and rediscover the world of babies and how they experience it.
Babies is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray via Amazon. £9.99
I really want to see this movie, but every time I try and rent it on cable, I get shouted down by the rest of the family, and we have to watch (yet another) movie about dogs who talk.