I am so pleased I ventured to see HUGO and especially in 3D. Martin Scorsese clearly adores film and its history and here he takes us on a journey back to its early fledgling days. I cannot fault this work. The production values are outstanding.

Set in Paris in the 1930′s, the opening sequence is absolutely one of the great, great shots of Cinema. Hugo, played by Asa Butterfield ( the boy from the excellent Brit holocaust film THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS) is an orphan who rather than live in an orphanage following the death of his father ( Jude Law) and the disappearance of his vile uncle ( Ray Winstone) hides in the cavernous maze of catwalks, ladders and platforms that support the great clocks that dominate a vast Parisian railway station. Among the regular storekeepers who make a living in the hall of the station is George Melies ( the immortal French film pioneer fallen on hard times and played brilliantly by Ben Kingsley ). Before Hugo’s father died, he was working on an automaton, an early robot, and this along with a notebook is the sole remainder of their life together possessed by Hugo. The boy wants to discover how to repair the automaton as he feels sure there is a message in it left by his father. It turns out to be more impactual when there is also a connection to George Melies, the grumpy and irascible storekeeper.

In flashbacks to his past, we see Melies ( who built the very first movie studio and utilised bizarre costumes and magician’s tricks to create moving pictures that were all laboriously tinted by hand, frame by frame) and actually some of this amazing man’s work. eg the famous A TRIP TO THE MOON made in 1902 where a group of space travellers are fired into space in a rocket that lodges in the eye of the Man in the Moon.

Even the absolute earliest examples of film by the Lumiere Brothers dating from 1897 are given a 3D homage mention.There is a good storyline here with a variety of characters ( Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Frances De La Tour and more) and plenty of action and visuals as well – but ultimately this is a movie lovers paradise. For those who genuinely love Film as an Art medium ( and Scorsese must powerfully) this is sheer heaven. It has already won a swag of Awards ( including a Golden Globe for Best Director to Marty only this week). Johnny Depp was one of the Producers.

Conclusion:

Plot:
Having declared a truce in medieval times, the battle of power between warriors of the light and dark has been halted. An ancient prophecy exists declaring a powerful “Other” will choose a side, tipping the balance of control and causing the warriors to wreak havoc in modern times as the battle continues.

Conclusion:

Plot summary
South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook directed this violent and offbeat story of punishment and vengeance. Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is a husband and father whose reputation for womanizing is well known. One day, for reasons he doesn’t understand, Oh Dae-su finds himself locked up in a prison cell, with no idea of what his crime was or whom his jailers may be. With a small television as his only link to the outside world and a daily ration of fried dumplings as his only sustenance, Oh Dae-su struggles to keep his mind and body intact, but when he learns through a news report that his wife has been killed, he begins a long and difficult project of digging an escape tunnel with a pair of chopsticks. Before he can finish — and after 15 years behind bars — Oh Dae-su is released, with as little explanation as when he was locked up, and he’s soon given a wad of money and a cellular phone by a bum on the street. Emotionally stunted but physically strong after 15 years in jail, Oh Dae-su struggles to unravel the secret of who is responsible for locking him up, what happened to his wife and daughter, and how to best get revenge against his captors. Oldeuboi was screened in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and won the coveted Grand Prix. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi RT

Acting
Watching a movie based in and acted from a culture you know nothing about is tough to gauge. Couple that with the fact that you are reading the dialogue instead of watching people speak, well that compounds the problem. That being said, I never felt as if the acting was anything less than compelling and captivating, and even watching the dubbed version the actors seem to propel the story forward with their performances.

Film techniques
In a word: awesome. This movie has the greatest single frame/single take action scene/sequence ever made. That’s not my opinion, it’s a fact. Seriously, look it up.

Conclusion

This is a very British film, the performances are magestic and the direction is extremely confident. This isn’t going to spell the answers out like some hollywood spectacle, it’s going to make you wait and be silently patient for the answers to unravel. In saying that, I do agree it is at times hard to follow, so I would certainly recommend watching this with a keen eye and considerable concentration. It really is worth it . The sheer style and visual design of this film must be boasted about.

The acting: is stellar, and it amazes me that a cast so talented (Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth) have put forth such a…trivial effort. They are all great in it but the movie never becomes more than the sum of its parts. It slogs through what are seemingly inconsequential details only  to discover that these are in fact important, but at that point who cares? The ‘bad guy’ is disposed of and the whole movie feels like a ‘waiting to be the smarter person’ sorta thing. I felt like this movie tried to be smarter than it really was simply to disguise itself as a good movie.

It is screening this month at Cannes and should be released later this year. Trailer below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmgg7c-E6YA

This one’s from a few months ago.

This is the new teaser trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAztPsIVs-c

Superb!!!!!

Conclusion: