art for truth's sake

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2012)

Silent cinema has been out of style since about 1930 (except for "City Lights", "Modern Times" and "Silent Movie") and only one silent movie - "Wings" - had ever won Best Picture. Therefore, it was naturally a surprise to me that a silent movie won in the 21st century. I finally decided to see "The Artist", although I didn't expect much. The movie turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Partly about the love affair between two stars in 1920s-1930s Hollywood, the movie is moreover about lost dreams. As "Singin' in the Rain" showed, large numbers of silent stars simply could not make the transition to sound. It's a truly mystifying film.
A year ago, I had never heard of Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin or Bérénice Bejo. Now, all three have shown themselves to be quite competent. But most importantly, the Oscar wins by "The Artist" and "Hugo" (also worth seeing) have hopefully buried the whole "freedom fries" routine from nine years ago (and the icing on the cake is that "A Separation" from Iran won Best Foreign Language Film).
Anyway, definitely one that I recommend.