Last week I went with my partner—okay, “husband” according to Facebook, but that is a socially constructed falsehood; we aren’t really, in the eyes of the “law” married—to see the movie BABIES. My partner and I do not have a child together, and it is *highly* unlikely that we ever will, but we both adore babies, so going to see BABIES was a way to indulge ourselves in the fantasy of a shared baby.

OMG—the movie made me fall in love with the human race again. The babies—one Namibian, one Mongolian, one Japanese, one American—are all unique individuals, and I can’t imagine even the most curmudgeonly not enjoying the chance to observe these little human beings. In the wonderful lingering close-ups you can see the apparatus of the babies’ minds as they make connections and begin to understand how things in their worlds work. Their reactions are, as you would expect, completely unguarded. While we see a little of the parents, the primary focus of the film is decidedly on the babies themselves. Often hazardous things are happening, and you begin to wonder where the adults are. It is particularly harrowing to watch the little Mongolian baby trying to get down from an upside-down barrel. He is wearing only a shirt, no pants, and you can’t help but worry that he might crush his little weenie. Just as he makes it down, a herd of cattle comes rushing toward him and, panicked as they surround him, he tries desperately to get back up on the barrel.

This is true anthropological/ethnographic filmmaking, as observant and “neutral” as it is possible for any human being to be. Whoever it is behind the camera does not judge what is happening, nor make any attempt to rescue the babies. Not when the little Mongolian is being stampeded, not when the Namibian siblings come to blows, not when the Japanese baby throws a tantrum, or when the U.S. baby is taking a shit. The camera simply watches, unswerving, mute, unresponsive.

And yet, the camera is there. In fact we can surmise that there was probably more than one filmmaker in attendance. And so—I can’t help returning to quantum physics again, the idea of “observer effect,” the way in which the presence of the observer affects that which is being observed.

From a strictly filmmaking perspective I have seen this before. I worked as a film editor on a documentary called Family Business. It was part of the 6-film Middletown Film Series, a PBS documentary series produced by Peter Davis. Family Business was about a family who owned a Shakey’s Pizza franchise in Muncie, Indiana. There were seven kids in the family and six of them worked in the restaurant along with the mother and father. The father played the banjo in the restaurant, and all the kids had big performer personalities. As our film crew took up residence, filming for several weeks, the family became extremely lively (histrionic?). They didn’t shrink from the camera’s attention, even when they were going through extreme financial trouble and family discord. It made for a very interesting film. Who knows how much the film crew’s presence incited that interest and changed the outcomes in that family. It can’t be parsed.

Lynne McTaggart says: “Cocreation and influence may be a basic, inherent property of life. Our observation of every component in our world may help to determine its final state, suggesting that we are likely to be influencing every large thing we see around us. When we enter a crowded room, when we engage with our partners and children, when we gaze up at the sky, we may be creating and even influencing at every moment.”

I can’t decide if this is wonderful or terrible. Food for thought, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about BABIES. Observe them. Love them! Watch below.

Look for upcoming posts on: Teaching a Writing Workshop in Zimbabwe, Humility, and Entanglement with My Son.