60
The film's deep, precise colors, which look like they belong in a Peter Greenaway movie, are Berlin Babylon's first major surprise. The second is how watchable it is, given its obsessive focus on buildings.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Babylon is about architecture as a balm, and this is a particularly good time for such a film.
60
Unfortunately the film never establishes either a perspective of its own or a coherent geography of the city, so the politicians pontificating at ceremonies and architects commiserating at building sites become deadly dull long before the the film exhausts its 88 minutes.
75
Chicago Tribune by John Petrakis
This film would be an excellent companion piece to Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire," which deals with angels looking down on this scarred city. Berlin Babylon isn't nearly as lush, but in its own curious way, it's every bit as spiritual.
63
New York Post by Jonathan Foreman
Moves at a leisurely pace, and it cries out for a narrator or even just an organizing principle.
60
The voices of the architects, developers, public officials and contractors here discussing the specifics of particular sites, we're hearing the voices of a conflicted nation as it considers how to handle its tumultuous past while defining itself for future generations.
80
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
To many eyes, Berlin was the saddest city in 20th-century Europe, divided and lost, and as city symphonies go, Siegert's is pragmatic and optimistic.