A throwback to a bygone age.....and they nailed it to perfection!

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2012)

As a lover of both silent movies and early talkies, (as many of my other IMDb reviews prove), I was looking forward to seeing The Artist. However, this was not without a degree of trepidation. I've seen other movies try to parody the silent age using all the available clichés in the book. Flickery images, tinkling piano soundtrack etcetera. I was not expecting any different here.
The Artist is the perfect homage to the age and the most realistic reenactment of what the silent movie experience was really like, with a great orchestral score. Silent movies were often accompanied with 100 piece orchestras in the theatre playing emotive music composed specifically for the feature as displayed here in the opening scene.
I'm not going to give too much away on plot here but it centre's around a huge silent Hollywood movie star and a career ruined by the advent of sound. Sadly this was a scenario all too real for some actors, most notably John Gilbert, who tried his luck in talkies and failed and Douglas Fairbanks who retired from the screen immediately without even attempting a 'talkie', to whom lead actor Jean Dujardin, bears more than a resemblance.
The scenes with Dujardin & the dog reminded me so much of the interplay between William Powell & Asta of the thin man movies of the 30's and 40's.
Everything about this movie is ripe with symbolism. The movie is silent because our hero feels he has no voice in the modern world which is brought home in a wonderful scene where everyone and everything has sound apart from him. This scene raised a smile and must have had the Foley boys working overtime to get right.
Bérénice Bejo is excellent as the young struggling actress Dujardin befriends, who's star ironically rises as his starts to fall. A nice little inter-title card declares mid-film, 'I want to be alone' a nice nod of the head there to Greta Garbo one of the greatest actresses of the silent age who in early talkies made that phrase her trademark.
My nod of the head goes to the film makers that made everything as authentic as possible from the fashions, the music, the cars and the interiors. Look out for some natty dancing from our two leads as well.
I've always loved silent movies and although this has been made over 80 years after the art form officially ceased to exist, this is one of the best. Will it revive the genre? Probably not. Will it encourage people to look outside the box and explore silent movies further? That's even less likely. Should it win every award it's nominated for? Certainly.
Enjoy!!!