Enlarge By Focus Features Hello, Hattie: She's one of the four babies profiled in Babies, and she lives a relatively privileged life in San Francisco with her family. ABOUT THE MOVIE ABOUT THE MOVIE Babies * * * 1/2 (out of four) Director: Thomas Balmes 
 
 Distributor: Focus Features 
 
 Rating: PG for cultural and maternal nudity throughout 
 
 Running time: 1 hour, 19 minutes 
 
 Opens Friday nationwide There's nothing Hollywood or Gerber about Babies. But it will be hard to watch this extraordinary film and its adorable stars without a goofy smile. This observant documentary offers an up-close-and-personal glimpse of four babies from vastly different cultures in their first year of life. It's no home video. The photography is stunning, and Bruno Coulais' music adds just the right soundtrack to this intriguing visual diary. TRAILER: Check out 'Babies' DOCUMENTARY: 'Babies' makes mothers' day 9 LIL' FACTS: How 'Babies' was conceived Director Thomas Balmès has a light touch capturing the captivating moments of early life. It's not a traditional documentary; there's no narration, subtitles or scientific information imparted. There's far more gurgling and cooing than dialogue. The developmental similarities are there, but it's the differences in behavior and circumstances that jump out. We meet the easygoing Ponijao, her mother and other members of her Himba tribe outside her family's dirt hut in Namibia. Curious Bayarjargal lives with his parents and siblings and a herd of cattle on their farm in remote Mongolia. Mari has a toy-filled existence in a small apartment with her parents in Tokyo. Hattie lives a pampered American life in San Francisco with parents. She is taken to baby yoga, and a book titled No Hitting sits prominently on a bookshelf. Ponijao and other tribal children share easily, Bayarjargal and his brother squabble, but their parents generally let them work it out. Mari doesn't have as much chance to interact with other babies, but gets frustrated by the bevy of educational toys set out to amuse her. Some of the most riveting moments in this cinematic scrapbook are those most removed from American experience. Bayarjargal lies swaddled on his back, watching raptly as a colorful rooster parades around his bed, perilously close to stepping on the infant. When old enough to crawl, he fearlessly makes his way into a herd of cattle. No one is around to swoop him up. But the cows step around him and the boy obliviously ambles off. Ponijao exchanges a kiss with a roaming dog. Ponijao and her family seem the most content, though their circumstances are easily the most meager. This could be because of Balmès' Rousseau-like belief in the nobility of those living closest to the natural state. There does seem to be this subtle point of view, based on his scenes chosen from the 400 hours of footage shot. The procession of youthful behavior is almost hypnotic, but Babies is delivered with refreshing immediacy and joyful humor. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more ||||| "There is almost literally no difference between watching Babies and just watching a baby." 
 
 Babies! They're adorable! What with their big eyes and their smooth skin and their happy smiles and their unrivaled feces-production capabilities. Babies! Am I right? 
 
 The documentary Babies asks the tough questions about human infants, questions such as: Aren't they cute? Seriously, would you look at them? How cute are they? Couldn't you just eat them up? The answers may surprise you. 
 
 Four infants from different corners of the globe are our entry points into the world of babydom. Ponijao, a boy, lives happily amid dirt and flies in the desert of Namibia. Bayarjargal, also a boy, is Mongolian. The fairer sex is represented by Mari, in Tokyo, and Hattie, in San Francisco. The filmmaker, Thomas Balmes, starts with their births (quite graphically, in one case), then observes them for about two years. 
 
 And, uh, that's it. Balmes makes no attempt to shape the footage into "stories" or "plots." He employs no narrator. When the babies' parents and caretakers speak in their native tongues, no subtitles are provided. Balmes' intent is not to interfere or interpret or direct, but merely to observe. That's admirable when you're documenting something dynamic or controversial. But without some nudging, babies don't DO anything. They coo, cry, laugh, gurgle, crawl, and toddle. And while that's pleasant to watch now and then, it gets tiresome when it lasts 80 minutes. The babies stay young, but the movie gets old fast. 
 
 Some of the cultural differences are interesting, though. There's an amusing contrast between the upscale urban lives of Mari and Hattie and the rural, primitive way Ponijao and Bayar are brought up. While Hattie's mother is at the pediatrician's office asking about SIDS and the right position for Hattie to sleep in, Ponijao's mother is squatting in the dirt, being pooped on by her naked baby, then wiping it off with a dry corncob. Mari is coddled by her mother at a play group, where jaunty baby songs are sung. Bayar is left unattended in a field of cattle. 
 
 Sure, the babies' interactions with their siblings and pets are occasionally amusing. If you trained a camcorder on your own baby for several hours, you'd capture events very much like these, though perhaps with less corncobbing. In fact, there is almost literally no difference between watching Babies and just watching a baby. Alfred Hithcock said drama is "life with the dull bits cut out." Babies is life with the dull bits intact. 
 
 Grade: C 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Eric D. Snider (website) refuses to buy anything less than a two-ply corncob. ||||| For some reason, Thomas Balmès’s documentary “Babies’’ is being released in time for Mother’s Day weekend. Superficially, it seems like the right idea. Balmès found four perfectly adorable babies in different regions of the world — San Francisco, Mongolia, Tokyo, and the Namibian flatlands — and filmed them for about their first 12 months. But for some mothers, this will feel like work. See these children fight, cry, freak out, stare off into space, be cleaned, urinate, drink breast milk, and get a haircut. Been there, done that: Where are my flowers? 
 
 Still, as an advertisement for the wonders of figuring out how to be alive, the movie is an engaging proposition. When the film isn’t oscillating among its subjects, it’s partially juxtaposing images. In California, Hattie’s dad takes a shower with her. In Namibia, Ponijao’s mother licks her clean. Balmès’s approach is averse to cuteness for its own sake and watchful enough to leave you time to wonder about how you’d feel spending the first year of your life with a camera in your face. 
 
 Bayar in Mongolia seems like a deep thinker, lying on his back, indifferent to the rooster standing by his head. To her father’s consternation, Mari, the Tokyo baby, is a deep rattler. And Ponijao seems like a deep feeler — emotionally and tactilely. She wails when her older brother hits her and looks intense as she pushes her hands and face into barren red earth. This region of Namibia — Kunene — is the most consistently fascinating material in the film. Aside from National Geographic visits, it’s an infrequently documented part of the world. And the Himba people, who operate in tribes, wear few clothes, and spend a lot of time doing their hair, are innately cinematic. They live very low to the ground, among wildlife and livestock, and seem to get a kick out of each other. Blips of modernity — a plastic water bottle or an oil drum — appear around the homestead. Ponijao has a biological mother, but several tribeswomen are raising her and they find a source of amusement in her development. 
 
 I don’t think the movie is looking for answers; it isn’t asking any questions. But by its very nature, this is both an experiment in ontology (do babies know they’re babies?) and existentialism (are they thinking about who to be?). Balmès tries to emphasize an aspect of communal life in most of the film’s four sections. In San Francisco, he appears to fall for clichés. At some point, Hattie, a blonde with blue eyes, finds herself in a hippie drum circle (“Hey yanna, ho yanna, hey yanna ho’’ — that sort of thing). Having heard enough, she heads to the nearest exit, implying, at the very least, a future in criticism. 
 
 Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. 
 
 © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. ||||| Movie review: 'Babies,' a joyous and buoyant new documentary 
 
 Director Thomas Balmès documents the first year in the lives of four infants from different parts of the world. 
 
 Our stars here are Ponijao from Namibia, Mari in Tokyo, Hattie from San Francisco and Bayarjargal, the only boy in the bunch, from Mongolia. We meet them at birth or soon after with Hattie's short hospital stay, her body wired to countless high-tech machines, a reminder of how fragile life can be. Sturdy too, as Bayar is strapped up papoose style just hours after birth for the motorcycle trip back to the pasture where the family's cattle graze. 
 
 It is both a strength and a weakness that beyond the normal spills that come with sitting, crawling, walking and other early milestones, there is not one truly difficult moment that darkens the screen. If anything, the sweet-smelling "Babies" is the complete opposite of the conflict-riddled reality media world that dominates these days. The "awww" without the "shock" definitely makes "Babies" a very huggable movie experience, just not a primer on parenthood. 
 
 Like the trailer that has been charming audiences for months, this is babyhood airbrushed to a high gloss. Squalls are few, colic doesn't exist, neither does disease, diaper rash or diapers at all for that matter as director Thomas Balmès traces the first year in the lives of four infants from four corners of the world. 
 
 In the joyous and buoyant new documentary "Babies," the filmmakers keep the baby — and the bathwater — and everything else about infants that makes them so appealing that the rest of us keep making more of them. 
 
 Circumstances range from primitive — Poni's family is part of an extended rural Himba tribe — to the urban affluence of Tokyo and San Francisco. It's a testament to the fundamental adorableness of infants that all were "cast" before they were born and are universally photogenic. Even so, stars will always emerge and Ponijao and Bayar, whose lives are virtually untouched by modern conveniences or modern parenting, prove to be major scene-stealers who could have carried the film on their own. 
 
 The director has said one of the main characteristics he wanted in the families he would follow was that the child would be loved. That is perhaps the most significant truth of the film: Children surrounded by love are likely to thrive and are delightful to observe. 
 
 Even though these are beautiful babies, there is an art to creating images that are both provocative and powerful, and in that the director is skilled. A good thing since there is no narrative, no script, no statistics — just coos, gurgles, laughter and the occasional scream. Thankfully actions do speak louder than words, with Mari's tantrum over her difficulties mastering the classic stacking toy of doughnut-shaped wooden circles that must be slipped onto a dowel all that needs to be said about frustration. The lack of language, for both the subjects and the film itself, also keeps any larger messages about the real task of having and raising babies at bay. 
 
 That is not to say there is no story. Balmès, editors Craig McKay ("Reds," "The Silence of the Lambs" ) and Reynald Bertrand ("La Crème"), and music by Bruno Coulais ( "Coraline" ) create a nearly perfectly paced window into an infant's evolution. The filmmakers stay with each baby long enough to capture their individuality and switch at the right moments to underscore how certain experiences are alike no matter who or where you are — the day Bayar discovers his feet for instance. 
 
 For the French documentarian, "Babies" represents a significant shift in style and topic. Balmès began his career with the 1996 "Bosnia Hotel," following U.N. peacekeepers from Kenya as they monitored the volatile Eastern European country. In the years since, he has examined a Nokia factory in China, a personal injury law firm in Connecticut and the Mad Cow crisis in India, where cows may be mad but they're also sacred. 
 
 Although "Babies" is light and filled with laughter, the making of the film was labor-intensive, shooting for 400 days over two years, often 12-hour days yielding only one usable shot. Balmès relied on a digital camera and often virtually no crew to keep the babies' environment as natural as possible. The result is irresistible and possibly infectious. Childhood and child-rearing through Balmès lens is overflowing with love and free of disappointments and pain — oh, if it were only so.
– Critics are generally won over by Babies, a documentary that follows four infants' first years in San Francisco, Mongolia, Tokyo, and Namibia. Some samples: Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "As an advertisement for the wonders of figuring out how to be alive, the movie is an engaging proposition." Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "The 'awww' without the 'shock' definitely makes Babies a very huggable movie experience, just not a primer on parenthood." Claudia Puig, USA Today: "The photography is stunning," she writes. "The procession of youthful behavior is almost hypnotic, but Babies is delivered with refreshing immediacy and joyful humor." Eric D. Snider, Film.com: "There is almost literally no difference between watching Babies and just watching a baby. Alfred Hitchcock said drama is 'life with the dull bits cut out.' Babies is life with the dull bits intact."