Hugo is an orphan boy living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. He learned to fix clocks and other gadgets from his father and uncle which he puts to use keeping the train station cloc...
WHAT I LIKED: Though no surprise considering the obvious shared influences, whenever I watch 'Hugo,' I'm convinced that Tim Burton just decided he'd act under the sudonym of Martin Scorsese so that someone else would have to do the press tour.
For a start, it's a film that surrounds one particularly dark and cooky piece of set design (Paris' Montparnasse station to be precise), but then - from Sacha Baron Cohen's cockney Inspector who's played with all the absurdity of a mime comic, to Ben Kingsley's wide-eyed, timid salesman Papa Georges who's clad in as much eccentricity as he is tweed - it constantly observes everyday characters acting in the most ridiculous, exagerrated ways within that. There's a real obsession with people's strange little behaviours here, and, though unusual for Scorsese, that's emphasised by the way the camera frames its subjects like paintings; in perfect proportion, or from striking angles to draw attention to the theatricality of their expression or stance.
But rather than a simple stylistic approach, that focus of the filmmaking is born wonderfully from a narrative that's all about silent cinema - a time where observation and satire was the order of the day. Specifically, the movie follows a young, orphaned outsider character (again, very Tim Burton) who literally discovers that the silent films his late father introduced him to are the key to unlocking his legacy. He winds up on an adventure with the daughter of the aforementioned Papa Georges who turns out to be the one and only Georges Melies, and it's all happily ever after when, through Hugo's childhood hope and wonder, the latter rekindles his now-buried love for the wonderfully observational power of cinema.
As a result of that story, and the way the film is delivered so much in the style of the films it's about, ultimately makes 'Hugo,' one of the great love letters to cinema; a celebration of how the moving image can enchant and observe like no other medium (a fact helped too of course by how visually arresting it is on its own).
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Just as with the silent-era greats, that theatrical style undermines much space for sincerity and naturalism, but that's not what this is all about.
VERDICT: Both through its enchanting style and story, 'Hugo,' is a wonderful ode to the wonderful, observational power of cinema.
