Fridae

We think we know all about babies: they cry, drink milk, poop, and sleep. They demand our absolute attention and loyalty, all of the time. And that’s all they do in their first year of life as humans. I mean, that’s all there is to babies, right? Right?

The director of this documentary evidently doesn’t think so. And instead of just showing us one toddler, Thomas Balmes would like to acquaint the audience with four of them – from Namibia, Japan, the United States, and Mongolia. For the entirety of the film, we will follow the growth of these four newborn babies in their first year of life – and that’s all you will get with Babies.

What’s the point, you ask. It turns out that what we think we know about all babies isn’t all that important or relevant. What’s more important and far more interesting – and interesting enough that you’d want to watch it on film – is who does the childcare and how it’s done and to what specific purpose.

You see, anthropologists tell us that babies are not quite humans – they have to be socialised in a process of enculturation by caregivers and the wider community before they are functioning young members of society. What this documentary does is present the enculturation process of babies from four very different societies, and show that while they need to be bathed, fed, rocked to sleep, played with, and looked after, these actions bear completely different meanings in these completely different contexts.

And of course, it helps that the babies are adorable, even when they are so alien... and grow up in cultures alien to ours. Babies is a strangely reaffirming film about human nature and the value of life, and I’m very impressed that it works without a single word of documentary dialogue.