An Adventure in Cinema. Review on Hugo Movie

I didn’t know anything about Hugo except that it had won 5 Oscars and it was a good thing I didn’t know anything. At the beginning of the movie it is difficult to say which way it would go: will it be a fantasy movie with lot of magical and supernatural stuff as in Harry Potter movies? Because you get that feel from the brilliant technical work in photography and the issues involved—a young boy living surreptitiously at a train station in Paris, winding the clocks, an automaton waiting to deliver a secret when a heart shaped key is found, a mysterious old proprietor of a toy shop at the same railway station. Or will it be a simpler story of a young boy like David Copperfield or Oliver Twist? But no, the movie is not about treasures and fantasy stuff, it is about a great discovery, of a forgotten human being, a great artist, who has chosen self-oblivion. It is about the young boy, Hugo, as well, whose life intersects that of the forgotten artist in a very strange way. It is about an automaton which has to be made functional. And it is about persistence, love, cinema.

So there is Hugo Cabret, the young orphan, who has great skills-like his father-when it comes to clocks and machines. He lives stealthily at a train station winding the clocks there as a proxy for his cruel and drunkard of an uncle. He says “I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine. I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason” and “Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do. Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose. it's like you're broken." And this small and talented boy has made it his life purpose to mend the broken automaton, his father’s legacy to him, and to get a secret out of it. He is a gusty kid, who has the mental toughness and resourcefulness to deal with the antagonistic toy shop owner and the strict and unemotional inspector with an ugly dog who is fond of hunting down and sending boys like Hugo to orphanage. He also finds compassion and friendship. Friendship of a girl, and that leads to many adventures and unraveling of secrets.

To Hugo says Georges Méliès: Happy endings only happen in the movies.

And Hugo Cabret replies: The story's not over yet.

This is the same Georges Méliès who used to give joy to others and say say, “Come, dream with me” and would say proudly about his work “If you ever wonder where your dreams come from, look around: this is where they're made.”

Who is or was Georges Méliès? What is his story? What happened to him? How does this boy Hugo get involved with him? What is the secret of the automaton and its creator? Why does the automaton, which Hugo got from his father sign the name of the toy shop owner, when it starts working? Is Hugo caught by the cruel inspector and sent to an orphanage? How do movies, and silent movies at that, come into the picture? Who really is the old man, the owner of the toy shop? These and many other questions should rightly intrigue you and they also keep up the suspense in the movie. At the same time, discoveries, exposures, change of heart, and answers to the questions give great viewer satisfaction. The first half of the movie gives Hugo's background and a view of things alongwith the mysteries that Hugo is encountering; the second half of the movie takes up a new line of mystery, and from then on, the other mysteries converge around this one.

Hugo is a great homage to cinema, especially to silent movies. Scorsese has mentioned that he took inspiration from Robert Donat’s 1951 film, The Magic Box, a biopic telling the story of British cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene. However, Scorsese doesn’t get carried away by nostalgia and so Hugo doesn’t turn into a documentary. This balance between the wonderful and the real makes Hugo a movie that can be loved both by kids and by adults. Harold Lloyd’s iconic clock scene from Safety Last is one of the many shown— and Lloyd used no trick photography, no stuntmen, no harnesses, no nets for this great and dangerous scene. History turns alive, and the silent movies, of Georges Méliès especially… Hugo is the catalyst that brings Melies alive. Certainly there is good acting by Ben Kingsley, and you can also get a glimpse of Georges Méliès in a shot. Le Voyage dans la lune(A Trip to the Moon), considered the first science-fiction film, and Le voyage à travers l’impossible(An Impossible Voyage) are the ones shown in some detail. When we see the black and white silent movies, they seem distant, a part of history, but in Hugo, through flashback, that atmosphere of that happening time is brought alive, in color, and you can feel those human beings of silent movies as real people with as much color in their lives as you have.

The difference between Hugo and the Tintin movie, both released in 2011, is significant. None of them uses supernatural stuff but both of them use technology, great camera work, animation or semi-animation etc. Yet Hugo scores over Tintin in technology and focus. Like Tom Hank’s The Terminal, Hugo is centered mainly at one locale, a railway station. The flashbacks and movie stuff is there to transport the audience into different worlds though.

Hugo is a great movie. The direction is crisp, so is the editing. There is quite some emotion, also nostalgia, age and youth encounter, and some love that make the movie interesting.

The atmosphere of the 1930’s is very much there and even the 1895 train crash that really happened is shown in a dream within a dream of Hugo. The gala honoring Melies shown in the movie also really took place in 1929. Several other things like the idea of the automaton and the character of Mama Jeanne have some real foundation.

Asa Butterfield has played the part of Hugo excellently, showing a controlled performance yet with several emotional scenes. So does Ben Kingsley. Helen MacCrory looks ravishing even as an aged Mama Jeanne. The director has not given way to reputations and kept his eye on the story and that is why even well-known actors like Jude Law, Michael Stuhlbarg and Emily Mortimer get small parts.