Hugo (2011)
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sasha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer
Synopsis:
At the Gare St Lazare in Paris during the 1930s an orphaned boy who scurries around maintaining the station clocks and dodging the vigilant station inspector makes the acquaintance of the toy repair shop proprietor. Though initially guarded their relations may be, it transpires that they have a lot more in common than either of them suspects.
Review:
Scorsese's affectionate treatment of an imaginative novel coupling the rediscovery of Georges Méliès and his films with the struggle of a young boy to cope with bereavement. The detail in the production is as intricate and colourful as one of the silent master's own films, and the tracks and cranes through the station and the cog-filled passages traversed by the boy resemble the very workings of the automaton he has taken it upon himself to repair. However, this fussiness extends to the deployment of minor characters and personages that have little to contribute to the tale (James Joyce glimpsed on a café terrace) and result in uncomfortable lurches of tone; there is an unreined-in contribution from Sasha Baron Cohen as the Inspector which, in its channelling of Peter Cook, at times threatens to destablise the film as much as his Strangelove tin leg does him. It is a pity because the portrayal of this station as a self-contained world, with its flower sellers and booksellers, has much to commend it, but taken with the need to sketch in the backgrounds of both the boy and Méliès himself, it smacks of Marty biting off more than we can chew.
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sasha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer
Synopsis:
At the Gare St Lazare in Paris during the 1930s an orphaned boy who scurries around maintaining the station clocks and dodging the vigilant station inspector makes the acquaintance of the toy repair shop proprietor. Though initially guarded their relations may be, it transpires that they have a lot more in common than either of them suspects.
Review:
Scorsese's affectionate treatment of an imaginative novel coupling the rediscovery of Georges Méliès and his films with the struggle of a young boy to cope with bereavement. The detail in the production is as intricate and colourful as one of the silent master's own films, and the tracks and cranes through the station and the cog-filled passages traversed by the boy resemble the very workings of the automaton he has taken it upon himself to repair. However, this fussiness extends to the deployment of minor characters and personages that have little to contribute to the tale (James Joyce glimpsed on a café terrace) and result in uncomfortable lurches of tone; there is an unreined-in contribution from Sasha Baron Cohen as the Inspector which, in its channelling of Peter Cook, at times threatens to destablise the film as much as his Strangelove tin leg does him. It is a pity because the portrayal of this station as a self-contained world, with its flower sellers and booksellers, has much to commend it, but taken with the need to sketch in the backgrounds of both the boy and Méliès himself, it smacks of Marty biting off more than we can chew.
Country: US
Technical: col 126m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sasha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer
Synopsis:
At the Gare St Lazare in Paris during the 1930s an orphaned boy who scurries around maintaining the station clocks and dodging the vigilant station inspector makes the acquaintance of the toy repair shop proprietor. Though initially guarded their relations may be, it transpires that they have a lot more in common than either of them suspects.
Review:
Scorsese's affectionate treatment of an imaginative novel coupling the rediscovery of Georges Méliès and his films with the struggle of a young boy to cope with bereavement. The detail in the production is as intricate and colourful as one of the silent master's own films, and the tracks and cranes through the station and the cog-filled passages traversed by the boy resemble the very workings of the automaton he has taken it upon himself to repair. However, this fussiness extends to the deployment of minor characters and personages that have little to contribute to the tale (James Joyce glimpsed on a café terrace) and result in uncomfortable lurches of tone; there is an unreined-in contribution from Sasha Baron Cohen as the Inspector which, in its channelling of Peter Cook, at times threatens to destablise the film as much as his Strangelove tin leg does him. It is a pity because the portrayal of this station as a self-contained world, with its flower sellers and booksellers, has much to commend it, but taken with the need to sketch in the backgrounds of both the boy and Méliès himself, it smacks of Marty biting off more than we can chew.