Babies is a documentary with no narration and no dialogue. The only language that is heard, aside from the gurgling noises of infants, is the occasional background discussion of the parents of the four babies whose first year on Earth is chronicled in the movie. Frequently that discussion is cut off mid-sentence, and only in the case o of the San Francisco family is it in English. The other babies live in Tokyo, the plains of Mongolia, and the dirt of Namibia. The camera is concerned with the world as the babies see it. Frequently we see them left to their own devices, exploring the tiny space around them without adult interference.

To use the word “poor” to describe the Namibian family is to use the wrong vocabulary. They are so far beyond poor that money seems like it would be irrelevant. That little girl and a slightly older baby, perhaps her brother, spend their lives virtually naked and, like the women who care for them, on the bare red-sand ground. They have a small hut for shelter. The baby’s father, and for that matter any man, is never seen. Goats and dogs wander by, and the women frequently proffer their breasts to the babies. The little girl is adorable.

The American and Japanese babies, also girls, have fairly similar and familiar environs. The one bit of dialog that is deliberately left in the movie for comic relief shows the American girl and her parents in a group singing “The Earth is our mother”. The contrast, of course, between her life and the lives of the Namibian and Mangolian babies, who literally live off the land, makes it seem like they are actually on different planets. Their perceptions of the world start on very different tracks from day one. It’s a fun and fascinating look at the first year of life.