Hugo (3D).
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:12 am
Can't see a recent thread on this film and as I saw it on Sunday in my local multiplex (is that what these multiple screen cinema's are called) and loved it, I thought I'd pass on the message.
The film has one of these achingly beautiful (sort of not quite real - think Moulin Rouge) panoramic backdrops of Paris against which is set the magical story of an orphan boy who lives sequestered in the hidden tunnels of la Gare du Nord in 1920's France. His quest in life, apart from keeping the stations clocks wound, is to fix a writing automaton that he hopes will reveal a message from his dead father. He meets an orphan girl and together they embark on a quest to unravell the mystery surrounding her guardian - the enigmatic Papa Georges, who is in some way connected to Hugo's own quest.
While on the surface a kids film with it's bright colors and bustling sets, a deeper story soon emerges of the history of cinema's early days which takes it out of it's earlier aparent genre (in fact on Sunday the kids in the auditorium were clearly struggling with it's length and (for them) lack of 'action). I don't know if it deserved to be in 'the Best Film' catagory of the recent Oscars but it was surely up there as a very special piece of cinema. It fails here and there on a few small points (one story line - in fairness non explicit - seemed to go nowhere and the kid actors are, well, kids so you just can't expect as much of them as adults) but in all it was a joy to see and I loved it. Scorsese's first family film was always going to be something special and yes, the master pulled it off.
The film has one of these achingly beautiful (sort of not quite real - think Moulin Rouge) panoramic backdrops of Paris against which is set the magical story of an orphan boy who lives sequestered in the hidden tunnels of la Gare du Nord in 1920's France. His quest in life, apart from keeping the stations clocks wound, is to fix a writing automaton that he hopes will reveal a message from his dead father. He meets an orphan girl and together they embark on a quest to unravell the mystery surrounding her guardian - the enigmatic Papa Georges, who is in some way connected to Hugo's own quest.
While on the surface a kids film with it's bright colors and bustling sets, a deeper story soon emerges of the history of cinema's early days which takes it out of it's earlier aparent genre (in fact on Sunday the kids in the auditorium were clearly struggling with it's length and (for them) lack of 'action). I don't know if it deserved to be in 'the Best Film' catagory of the recent Oscars but it was surely up there as a very special piece of cinema. It fails here and there on a few small points (one story line - in fairness non explicit - seemed to go nowhere and the kid actors are, well, kids so you just can't expect as much of them as adults) but in all it was a joy to see and I loved it. Scorsese's first family film was always going to be something special and yes, the master pulled it off.