Hugo, based on the book of the same name by Brian Selznick, tells an enchanting story of an orphaned boy (Asa Byutterfield of Striped Pyjamas fame), a genius with clockwork, who lives in a Paris train station winding the clocks and stealing food. He inherited an old automaton from his father and attempts to make it come back to life. After stealing one tool too many from a toymaker who has a small shop in the station the old man catches him and makes him work to pay off his crime. Hugo meets the man's goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz of Kick Ass fame), and together they discover that the old toymaker is in face Georges Melies, a pioneer of early cinema.
Hugo is a slightly odd combination of whimsical adventure story and historical drama about the birth of cinema. Also odd in that it is directed by Martin Scorsese, not known for whimsy or children's films. However, this is not just a children's film. Our two protaganists are 13, both having the sort of slightly stretched look that young teenagers often suffer, and both are in some way older than their years so they do not come across as immature. Also the film benefits from being very French in inspiration. Like the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and his forebears the story encompasses the smaller dramas of the supporting characters too - the budding relationship between an elderly couple (Frances De La Tour and Richard Griffiths) who are kept apart by an angry dachshund being my favourite. Rather than flattening everyone beneath the wheels of the central couple's storyline, as so many American blockbusters do, Scorsese includes and indulges these minor storylines and the film is all the more engaging for it.
As a film fan Scorsese obviously relishes the chance to tell the story of Melies' early films: fantastical wonders, produced in the early 20th century in a giant greenhouse (for the light) and even shown in colour (Melies and his wife painstakingly coloured in each cell on the film), with amazing special effects and costume. I found these to be some of the most fascinating sequences of the film and also the most affecting, as Melies has to sell his entire stock during the First World War and turns into the embittered old man Hugo met at the start of the film. The two parts of this film blend together very well and both are equally enjoyable - the sections with Hugo and Isabelle exploring the old station are enchanting and the latter half where they discover Melies' past is fascinating. Very much worth a watch if it's still showing near you.
Empire described The Artist and Hugo as being "an overpoweringly emotional film fan’s double-bill", and having seen them both within a week I agree that they do complement each other very well. However, I have to confess that I probably enjoyed Hugo the most. The Artist is undoubtedly an interesting addition to the fold - filmed in black and white and almost entirely as a silent film, with orchestral soundtrack, it is a throwback to the glamorous silent films of the 20s. It tells the story of the change from silent film to talkies during that decade through the plot device of a young aspiring actress, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), who falls for an older established film actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin). They fall in love despite Valentin being married but tension arises as she becomes the new darling of the cinema-going public, starring in the new talkies, and he falls out of favour as he doggedly pursues silent films.
This film is certainly a curiosity and there are some very clever sections in it, notably George's dream sequence where he cannot find a voice in a world of sound, as well as an extremely talented dog; however it doesn't really do anything new for the format, its interest lies in the fact that it is a very accurate 21st century reproduction of what film was like 90 years ago. It's certainly fascinating to see that in this day and age director and writer Michel Hazanavicious has produced a successful film which is entirely in black and white with only a few lines of dialogue, and I can't deny that the film is sufficiently engaging and enjoyable. It's also very restful; the restrictions of this format means that, by necessity, the storyline is simple and the pace is slower than modern films so you just have to sit back and appreciate the music and the attentive period detail of the beautiful sets and costume.
I suspect the reason that this film has had such a rapturous reception from the critics is because it's a film-geeks heaven, especially for those who have a nostalgia for the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood. However, as a very modern film fan myself, I enjoyed it but was not blown away by it. Of course I appreciated the work that had gone into it, the charisma and talent of leading man Jean Dujardin, and the novelty of sitting in Oxford's aging George Street Odeon watching such a throwback, but it's purely a very clever reproduction - this is not doing anything new or original. Although, perhaps it's not meant to. If you're a fan of old films you'll love this, but I suspect that it will cling on for longer in the Indie cinemas than it will in the multiplexes.
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