Hugo (2011)

I watched Martin Scorsese's Hugo for the first time today. I remember seeing the trailer for the movie at the time of release and thinking what a great spectacle it looked but quite a strange film. I never got the chance to see it on the big screen but a fair sized TV was satisfactory. Well Hugo is a very strange film, and it is a great spectacle but its delightful and for a cinephile like myself its a real treat. From about halfway through I was in my element.

Hugo Cabret played by Asa Butterfield in his first big leading role, is a young orphan who unknown to the staff runs the clocks of a Paris train station in the 1930's. He literally lives in the walls of the building. The station is full of interesting people to watch and here Scorsese has poured every ounce of talent he can muster up. Christopher Lee can be seen in a book shop, Emily Mortimer sells flowers, Richard Griffiths and Frances De La Tour are attempting a romance intercepted by her vicious dog, Sacha Baron Cohen is the comical Station Inspector. Then there is Ben Kingsley who is an old beaten down old gentleman who runs a toy shop and has a run in with Hugo as he tries to steal a mechanical toy.

Hugo is trying to find a key in the shape of a heart that will fix an automaton (a mechanical man) which writes when wound up. It is the only thing he has left of his father and he is desperately trying to fix it. The start of this film is a little bit like the famous five, solve the mystery of the key, but it soon becomes much more than that as it is revealed that the old man and the automaton are connected. We discover this through his god daughter played sweetly by Chloe Grace Moretz on her steady rise to fame. What we learn is that this is not just some mean old man, he is Georges Melies, for anyone who does not know, he was a very important man in the construction of the movies as we know them today. He followed in the footsteps of the Lumiere brothers in France and created hundreds of short films, the most famous of which Le Voyage Dans La Lune (The Trip to the Moon) released in 1902 is featured in Hugo. But in the 1930's he had sadly been forgotten as after World War One the movies moved on without him, and was living in steady poverty staying afloat with his small station toy shop.

The film then changes track, it is no longer about solving a mystery and the adventurous element slides back to reveal a warmth and heart to the picture as the children are intent on teaching Melies that he is not a forgotten man but a true artist and genius who is still largely respected by many. This second half of the movie is obviously very close to Scorsese's heart as he is an authority on the history of cinema. It is clear that a lot of feeling has gone into this section and a great respect. Hugo features other trips back to the truly classic era of cinema, the children in one scene sneak into a cinema and watch the famous clock scene from Safety Last (1923) with Harold Lloyd. Scorsese also recreates many scenes from Melies' movies and it really stands as a tribute to the man and the art form itself.

Hugo was Scorsese's first venture into 3D, so he was learning on the job for this movie, but you wouldn't know it. Hugo is one of those rare films where every shot is obviously meticulously thought out and made to look absolutely beautiful (it reminds me of the detail in Meet Me In St Louis (1944) where director Vincente Minnelli labored over every detail to make it perfect) it is for this reason that though it is set in the past I think the movie will stand the test of time. It is not going to be a great classic, but for any great lover of movies this is a must see and it will always be a beautifully crafted film.

8/10 for me purely for the cinema history lesson you are treated to within a great period family film.