Pleasures of Baby-Watching
by Lori Hadacek Chaplin in Reviews on Wednesday, October 06, 2010 6:00 AM
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I never get tired of watching babies. My own babies mesmerize, amuse, and captivate me. I get a thrill watching them develop and learn. When I saw a trailer in the movie theater for Babies
Babies
The film simultaneously follows the lives of four infants from birth to one-year-old. With no voice-over explanation or subtitles, the audience gets a quiet peak at what it is like for a baby growing up in Namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo, and San Francisco.
I was struck by the similarity of the behaviors the four babies exhibited and by how differently they were being raised. Babies everywhere look adorable, cry, laugh, enjoy being with their mothers, and get teased by older siblings. However, most babies in developed countries don’t crawl around in the dirt or under the hooves of cattle like the babies in Namibia and in Mongolia, respectively.
The freedom the children had to roam in Namibia and Mongolia made the lives of these two babies the most interesting to watch. More than once, I wondered why the mothers’ weren’t running to save their babies from what I perceived as potentially dangerous situations.
We see the Namibian baby girl, Ponijao, lying on her belly drinking water out of a murky stream and later chewing on a bone she found in the dirt — yet she looks and cared for, fat, and healthy.
Similarly, the Mongolian baby boy, Bayarjargal, roams half naked in the grasslands and lives in close proximity to animals. In one amusing scene, we see Bayarjargal, swaddled and lying on a bed when a resplendent rooster hops up and parades in front of him. Having been chased by more than one rooster as a child, I couldn’t help but cringe.
The babies from the modern societies, San Francisco and Tokyo, live somewhat privileged lives, but do not appear any happier or healthier. The San Francisco parents’ New Age-iness is annoying, and even their baby seems put off by it — hightailing it during a chant to mother earth. However, the comparison between the developed and the undeveloped worlds seen more clearly by the juxtaposition of shots of each of the four babies makes for fascinating viewing.
Babies
An added benefit of the DVD is a bonus featurette which provides a look at how the babies are doing as four-year-olds.
Babies
—Lori Hadacek Chaplin, a mother of three, will have a new baby to baby-watch this November.
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