The apogee of silent cinema

Rating: 7/10 (31 August 2012)

This movie tells us through the drama of the main character what was the the tragedy of many actors and actresses of the silent cinema who haven't adapted themselves to the talkies when they came because of their voices and not only that (Greta Garbo of all). Some performers and directors rejected also the talkies for aesthetic reasons considering it was not good cinema. Silent cinema marked an epoch and even shaped a life conception. In my opinion it wasn't only a starting stage of the cinema as an art but also a different kind of cinema and which could therefore have coexisted with the talkies. The visual technique employed in it, the expressionist performance of actors and actresses, the romantic nature of most stories, all of that was its peculiar mark. Director Hazanavicius has opted here to tell the story in terms of a silent movie using for that all the usual visual and performing techniques proper to that kind of cinema which makes the viewer to integrate himself better in the story atmosphere and even to understand better the drama of the silent movie's actor who not only doesn't feel ready to act on the talkies but also that rejects their aesthetic value which makes him to sink in moral and material misery. His drama is stressed by the fact that the girl he loves from the beginning and that was brought by him to the cinema suddenly became a talkies' star. A good movie to which we cannot demand more since the story is somewhat limited.