Silent pictures? They deserve better than this.

Rating: 1/10 (5 February 2012)

I won't mince words here: for me this was a desperately disappointing film. I am a passionate fan of the movies, especially the silents, of which I have seen more than a hundred, ranging from the excellent to the almost unwatchable and I must say that "The Artist" does not come up to my expectations. I shall be very surprised if it wins any major awards. It is not a silent film, it is not even a silent film with recorded musical score and occasional sound effects like, say "Sunset" or "The Trail of '98", it is more like a talkie with the dialogue track muted. The musical score is completely wrong as it sounds to me a couple of decades later than the period of the film. There is too much lip movement and there are too few titles: silent movie lovers will know that by the end of the silent era, titles were used sparingly and the unheard dialogue was short and to the point. Add to this the fact that the lead characters were not particularly likable and the film was too long. I was expecting a tribute to the art form I love and ended up watching a spoof! I much prefer "Singin' in the Rain"-at least it is an honest spoof.