Bébé(s) is a documentary by Thomas Balmès.

Plot:
The movie follows four children around the world from the day they were born to the day they start walking (more or less): Bayar from Mongolia, Hattie from the US, Mari from Japan and Ponijao from Namibia.

The movie has no narrator and you barely hear a line of dialogue. And yet, it tells us many things; starting with “Babies are so damn cute” and ending with comparisons of cultures and lives. It’s accessible and enjoyable and exactly as deep as you want it to be in that particular instant.

The movie does not preach, though it might have been its intention. You can focus on the differences between the cultures and wonder how come we all have two arms and two legs. Or you can focus on the similarities and wax about the universality of humanity. Personally, I stuck with enjoying the cuteness and leaving the mostly evident-and-well-known-so-universal-they-don’t-matter-anymore truths to somebody else to think over.

Fact is, babies, no matter where they come from and how they live, are extremely cute. And it’s surprisingly entertaining to watch them for 80 minutes, disovering the world. [Sometimes, I felt like I was watching one very long youtube video.]

Thomas Balmès does a good job juxtaposing the images and the music by Bruno Coulais fit the whole thing very well.

There were some really great scenes, like Mari’s temper tantrum (worthy of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd.) or Hattie fleeing from the playgroup when they start singing “the earth is our mother, she will provide for us” or Bayar bathing with the goat or Ponijao getting licked by the dog.

Summarising: It’s a fluff piece. But pretty entertaining. And really damn cute.