It’s a love or hate thing. You either love babies with their vague noises, gummy smiles and amazement at new discoveries, or you hate their wailing, various waste deposits and inability to make words. If you’re part of the latter, Focus Features’ new documentary “Babies” will be 79 minutes in a torture chamber of pediatric proportions.


The French film crew, Chez Wam followed the lives of four babies during their first year of life. Each baby is in a different location: Opuwo, Nambia; Tokyo, Japan; Bayanchandmani, Mongolia and San Francisco, California.


The first year of life is just a blink in our personal evolution. It’s pieced together through documentation and stories we hear, but we seldom actually remember it. Seeing the lives of these babies in very contrasting environments makes each feat of an infant more celebrated and less trivial.


Is this just a montage of home videos shot with a nicer camera? Yes, but most typical Americans have videos of themselves on their first Halloween and photos of themselves in high chairs with faces covered in spaghetti sauce. But Bayar from Mongolia now has footage of himself walking naked through a field of cattle, and not many Americans can say that.


The film explores the differences and similarities in cultures’ baby rearing, breast feeding and teaching methods.


It might be my familiarity with the American baby, but Hattie (the baby in San Francisco) seems more bored than the other three. Every other scene she is in a class, a baby posse or being read to. Mari from Tokyo has a fit in her room of abundant toys for longer than is tolerable.


It hammers the message of the over-stimulated city baby with a stunted drive for discovery and the rural baby with not much but the smile on his face.


Ponijao from Nambia is always happy with his rocks, dirt and sticks for toys. Bayar from Mongolia is entertained by goats and cattle and the household cat. It’s the naiveté of a child’s small world.


From the clip of the umbilical cord to the first triumphant step, this movie makes a big deal of the little deals. If you’re a mother (or soon-to-be), this movie might be worth the matinee price. If you just love the YouTube videos of babies laughing, get ready to be on cute overload. If you don’t think babies are even real people until they can walk, talk and use a toilet, then this movie will be a reassuring contraceptive.


“Babies” is showing at Sea Turtle Cinemas in Beaufort, S.C., at 11:55 a.m., 1:45 p.m., 3:35 p.m., 5:25 p.m., 7:15 p.m. and 9:05 p.m.