Babies2010

Babies will capture your eye -- and, probably, your fancy.

The name pretty much says it all here, as we follow four newborns from vastly different cultures through the first year of their lives. Without a spot of narration or even so much as a subtitle track for the non-English segments, it's a classic case of a film allowing its viewers to take whatever they want from it. As a relatively new parent myself, I was fascinated by the day-to-days of the two rural babies - one from the dust of west Africa, the other the grassy fields of Mongolia - and how completely alien their surroundings and practices seem from my comfortable perch here in the first world. It's tastefully filmed, with a particular emphasis on artistic framing and long, captivating shots of unsupervised children at play, encountering and discovering their world one step at a time. My young boys absolutely loved it, but at this point they'll watch almost anything with a cute face or two. Nice eye candy with a hint of deeper meaning, but not a show-stopper.

This documentary on one of the most universal, photographed, analyzed, opined upon and slavered over human experiences manages to astound.