"'Babylon' is a 39-year-old nugget of a movie about young British Jamaicans and their itinerant reggae scene built around sound systems, freestyling and parties with rich, low lighting. The film is making its American debut on Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and it’s got an episodic vividness and blanket-load of warmth, but also a harsh view of day-to-day life for black people in South London — on its streets, in its public housing, at its video arcades. If the police aren’t trying to shake down and beat up these guys, some fed-up white lady has come to their chill spot to complain (not unreasonably) that their music is too loud by telling them (unreasonably) to go back to their country and calling them 'jungle bunnies.' The movie is more interested in what feels real than what seems right. What was real, when the movie opened in Britain in November 1980, was the poverty and racism its characters dealt with. Apparently, it was too real. ..."
NY Times - ‘Babylon’ Review: A Clear View of Black Londoners When Few Films Saw Them (Video)
Rolling Stone - ‘Babylon’ Rising: The Resurrection of a Controversial U.K. Reggae Movie (Video)
W - Babylon (film)
YouTube: BABYLON • Official Trailer, Babylon - Franco Rosso - Trailer
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