Nostalgic remembrance

Rating: Null/10 (14 June 2012)

It's funny how within the same year we had Hugo, a Hollywood film that glorified the early French cinema, and The Artist, a French film that glorified the early Hollywood cinema. Yet both are very different as independent movies. Perhaps these two films shouldn't be compared like this, but I can't help it. To me Hugo feels more familiar. It tried to portray how movies were made during that time, but it still feels much more recent, the films aesthetics play to the norms of the modern day. All the colours, all the visuals. The setting is historical, but it's still a film that has clearly been done during the 21th century.
Not so much with The Artist, which genuinely feels and looks like a silent film of the early 20th century. And I love it because of it. The 1.33:1 screen ratio, the complete lack of dialogue or even environmental sounds (with one very haunting and effective exception), the use of music to tell a story, the constant mugging that still manages to look somewhat genuine, the black-and-white visuals - they all feel real and only the quality of the picture separates this from a genuine silent film. Well, that, and some singular scenes where the movie actually has some sound effects to create certain effects. Which is a point to the movie's favour, mind you, because even though this movie tries to imitate a silent film as much as possible, it still recognizes the fact that it's a modern film and can use certain effects that were not available during the time of its role models. Furthermore, the subject of the film is the coming of the so called talkies, so the occasional use of sound is easily called for.
So it really is a rather good film. Its very idea is easily the best part of it, but the individual aspects of the film easily keep up. The actors are very talented at what they do with Jean Dujardin's performance being every bit Oscar-worthy, though I personally think that Bérénice Bejo does equally good job as his counterpart. There's just this genuine joy to her and her dancing. And of course the music is fantastic. It has to be or the film just wouldn't work, because the score is the only thing that we will hear most of the time.
The movie has no obvious flaws, though the story is both intriguing and a bit predictable at the same time. But that's me nitpicking. It's a good movie and easily worth your time. And most importantly: it made me interested in silent films. And to this film that is the highest compliment that anyone can assign.