Film Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Who are Neveldine/Taylor? The Directing duo responsible for the sloppily shot and chopped actioners Crank 1 & 2 and Gamer. Their signature hallmarks? Grainy, ugly low angle shots, boorish jokes and a sensibility that if transcribed would only register in two variations of grunting. In other words, the oeuvre of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is the perfect storm of a soiled art form: Rednecks with Cameras.
For Marvel Knights’ (Marvel’s banner for their ‘darker’ offspring) second entry, this edition of the ballad of Johnny Blaze relocates the inaction to ‘Eastern Europe’ (not at all like setting your movie in ‘North America’) as we’re shunted through a ‘story’(?!) about a young boy and his jailbait mommy, ambivalent monks and poor old Ciarán Hinds as the devil. Whatever screenwriter David Goyer assumed would pass for an exciting chase movie, backfires miserably in the hands of such an incompetent directing team. The problem comes from everything Neveldine/Taylor stand for, they effectively take the worst of Michael Bay and Tony Scott (e.g. the ‘T & A’) and push it so far beyond good taste that no longer passes for amusingly outrageous. In a pact not dissimilar between the titular rider and the fallen one himself, the directors sold their competency for gratuitousness. But now they’ve been shackled to a PG-13/12A rating, unable to fulfil their R/18 rated antics they’re left to stagger around like a couple of newly neutered Dobermans.
Satanic deals always backfire and when your directors are stuck without their id or their capability to tell a story, is there even a film left? Is the film in question even in 3D? Given that Neveldine/Taylor’s favourite pastime on Crank 2 was bouncing a camera off of Amy Smart’s buttocks, 3D seemed to be a logical trajectory for this miscreant duet. Not surprisingly however, they fail to create even basic depth perception and fail utterly even in shoving things in our faces. The look of the film makes its predecessor look avant garde, the colour tones are bleached and miserable and the superpowers of the Rider and his new enemies are just as dank. There isn’t a single scene, shot or effect in the film worth writing home about. Every attempt to wow or stun fails as we don’t care and never will, the directors are so obsessed with making their movies badass that they fail to tell a basic story. But then we have a problem in rationalising this film in ‘basic’ terms, it tends to help matters if the directors have a concept of a story.
The worst feeling in the audio/visual torture that is Bone Rider: Spasms of Incontinence is just how boring it is. Sadly Neveldine/Taylor have fanboys and we will see them again to peddle their snot-encrusted, spittle-flecked, piss-soaked mode of filmmaking. Their ballistic attempts at engaging with a media art form will continue to fail and hopefully their coke-induced rush will wear off and they’ll gain some social skills. In fairness, they’ll have made enough by now for a dozen six-packs of Coors Light for the Daytona 500. It’s your money folks.
1/10.
Film Review: A Dangerous Method
Can the man who made bodyshock horror famous really make a movie about the birth of Psychotherapy? It would appear he can. David Cronenberg has always been somewhat of a cult hit director. Any student of film will no doubt spend hours discussing how Cronenberg has inspired and influenced many of his peers. Like any Auteur, Cronenberg has his traits….body mutilation, dark backgrounds, trademark music. Any fool with access to IMDB can view a list of what makes a film a Cronenberg film. Even reviewers do it from time to time.
A Dangerous Method is being considered his least Cronenbergian (questions may be raised regarding that spelling) movie to date. Gone is the body manipulation, the gore and the explicit violence. What’s left behind are the things which Cronenberg should be better known for; his links between sex and violence, comments on the self destructive nature of humans and at the core of all his movies…..fantastic dialogue and characters.
A Dangerous Method explores the complicated relationship between Carl Jung (Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Mortenson) as they develop what is now commonly known as Psychotherapy. Due to the nature of its subject matter A Dangerous Method doesnt include any car chases, dance numbers or big robots punching each other in the face. It perhaps may be a good idea for Optimus Prime and co. to sit down and discuss where it all went wrong, but this is neither the time nor the place to address those problems.
Forget for five minutes if you will that Mr Cronenberg has made this film. What plays out is interesting, insightful and beautifully made. Much like Moneyball succeeded in making a film about stats interesting, A Dangerous Method has made sitting around and talking about ones feelings very very interesting. At the key of all this is Keira Knightley’s performance as Sabrina Spielrein, a troubled but intellegent patient who is the main guinea pig for this new talking treatment. Knightley is fantastic portraying the trouble russian beauty, showcasing a performance which is opposite to her male counterparts. As she describes her experiences and emotions she physically wretches in agony while the cool and calm gents express their views with subtle glances and gestures. This brings a nice balance to the film and it’s refreshing to see Knightley take on something more challenging and bold. Mortenson and Fassbender are as always fantastic. The father son relationship that builds and crumbles is executed with excellent subtlety. There are no shouty dramatic scenes here, instead just perfectly executed dialogue from two guys on the top of their game. It is a shame to not see these two actors awarded more, it is only fitting that they appear in a film whose director has also been overlooked by academies and societies.
In many ways A Dangerous Method feels like Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. Not merely for its setting but for the friendship that slowly declines into a bitter rivalry. The passing of time is often conveyed through journals and letters which works perfectly for the narrative.
Throw Crononberg back into the mix and you have the bravery of a director that refuses to shy away from potraying sexuality on screen. Again the bravery and versitility of Knightley comes into play. The sexuality of the topic of psychoanalysis is never glossed over nor is it exploited to get cheap thrills. It is pitched at a perfectly adaquate level.
Spanking and talk of masturbation it may include but this is not the video nasty fan boy cult fodder that some would hope for. Cronenberg’s die hard fans may be disappointed, many of them might frantically dash to internet forums and message boards to express their disgust in the king of living flesh. The rest will hopefully show an appreciation for acting, direction, dialogue and the brave experimentation that has put Cronenberg on the map. This film is another example of how the director brings stunning performances together with the style and class we associate with a Cronenberg film. Long live the new flesh indeed.
Film Review: The Woman in Black
After terrifying readers and audience members of its respective novel and stage adaptation, the acclaimed heritage of Susan Hill’s potboiling shocker could only be poorly served by cinema. This was a fate suffered by The Golden Compass (previously a wildly imaginative West End production) but recently overcome by the stellar War Horse (likewise, following a stage version). The problem lies in the adage of ‘less is more’, theatre knows this and therefore has to compensate. Film isn’t constrained by 20 by 15 feet of stage (unless specified by the filmmaker, a’la Lars Von Trier’s Dogme phase) and in the case of such a high profile production, subtlety goes out the window, nuance is abandoned and invention isn’t catered for because the production has neither the impetus nor the ability to separate itself from the needs of boosting production value. This is one of the many issues nagging at the undead heart of Hammer’s newest foray into mainstream chills.
This is most evident in the music. Entire sequences are badly served by Marco Beltrami’s lacklustre score. It’s one thing to create unmemorable incidental music, it’s another to play it so persistently and overtly over moments that command underplay. Being loud and unimpressive, not good odds.
The story itself is tired and indeed tiring, two thirds of the story being devoted to drearily spouting exposition and exploring a location whose mystery isn’t even introduced properly until the third act. It’s one thing to deprive us of information; sure we’ll ask questions, but only if the clues are interesting enough.
The scares come into effect in the third and final act, and they come thick and fast (and god knows, the film needs them by this point). Director James Watkins of Eden Lake (an ASBO centric take on I Spit On Your Grave with Daily Mail pandering paranoia in the vein of Reefer Madness) does demonstrate some knowhow in conjuring some spooky rumblings. Pulling out all the haunted house tropes (eerie china dolls, creaky floorboards, overgrown weeds and dust, glorious dust) with reverential abandon. Some work, but one can’t shake off the feeling that they’re not much more than production design indulgences foisted upon the film, on the basis of Hammer’s schlock heritage.
At centre stage is Daniel Radcliffe, taking the role of young solicitor Arthur Kipps. Radcliffe does an admirable job with what is not much more than a ‘stick in the mud’ rendition of Sleepy Hollow’s Ichabod Crane. Kipps has all of Crane’s timidity, but none of his idiosyncrasy or more crucially, his cynicism. Radcliffe is therefore saddled with a character who doesn’t offer much beyond his stoic Potter persona, unfortunate as Radcliffe could easily have delivered a much more dynamic character if the writing allowed him.
The Woman in Black is neither a truly lacklustre experience nor a necessarily exceptional one, it is an experience of individually effective components. But a handful of scares can’t save a story that only kicks in during the third act. The production values overwhelm and paradoxically rob the film of its atmosphere. Less could have indeed, been so much more.
6/10.
Film Review: The Muppets
One dark cold Saturday night deep in the north east of England, a brave grey haired irish man braved the bitter wind and ice to attend his local multiplex. His film of choice….The Muppets.
All seemed to be going well. No traffic, Short queues. Coffee machine still serving. Everything was falling into place. The lights of Screen 5 dimmed and the familiar DCM logo appeared, but something was different. The screen was dotted with bright blues and yellows. Ray Winston discussed his love for cinema shrouded in blue pixels. Was this a re-release of the horrendous Avatar. Had big Jim Cameron finally pushed 3D so far it killed the Muppets? A member of staff popped in to inform the confused audience of technical difficulties. The film would air in 5 minutes. 5 minutes passed. No kermet and friends. Another member of staff popped in and disclosed it would be another 10 minutes. In a world where film projection is a thing of the past, the fate of the Muppets lay in the hands of a computer. Suddenly the screen lit up and it began.
What followed was a tour de force of nostalgia, classic childrens entertainment and puppet action. Jason Segal plays Gary, a regular guy from Smalltown USA who just happens to have a puppet brother named Walter. Like many children who have grown up in the 80’s and 90’s the two have a strong bond with the muppets. In the build up to Gary’s and his girlfriend Mary’s (Adams) anniversary Gary has arranged a trip to LA. Out of sympathy for his misfit brother, Gary decides to take Walter to see the shrine to his heroes that is the Muppets studio tour. It is soon obvious that all is not well in muppetland, the studio is abandoned and forgotten much like its stars. The world has moved on, the muppets are a thing of the past. An evil texas oil man plots to take over the studio unless Kermet can get the band back together and put on one hell of a comeback.
Within the first 5 minutes The Muppets does a fantastic job of pulling on the heartstrings of any viewer old enough to have seen them in their prime. The opening musical number is beautifully written and reminds the world of how touching and entertaining a bunch of characters with hands up their backsides can be. The main strength of the film is its nostalgia. It doesn’t try to be cool or updated, never abandoning its cheesy and corny roots, and instead it focuses on what has made these characters so loveable since their conception in Hensons workshop. It is obvious that this is a love letter from Segal to the characters he has grown up loving. In many ways the Muppets has more in common with The Artist than any other recent film as both are highlighting the beauty of cinema and near forgotten traditions in their purest form. The Muppets, like silent films have not been forgotten. If handled correctly they can work as well as they did all those years ago. The story is by no means deep or meaningful, though the evil oil barron trying to take over the muppet studio is enough to get the action going. When they deliver songs that are written so well all the simple plot fades into the background and the audience is reminded of the muppets when they were on top of their game.
Adams channels much of the talent and ‘Disney Princess’ like qualities she captured in Enchanted while Segal beams with childlike enthuasm throughout. The two are not alone though as a string of celebrity cameos including Jack Black, Dave Ghorl, Neil Patrick Harris, Whoppie Goldberg and many more keep the mood at an all time high.
A fantastic return to form that will remind adults of their childhood and introduce kids to Kermet and his band of friends. Strangly touching in places with a lot of heart and laughs. The disgruntled and caffeine filled Irishman exited the cinema with teary eyes. Reminded of how good cinema can be. No 3D, No explosions and No potty humour needed. The muppets had given him the third best gift in life….laughter.
Film Review: Chronicle
It should be evident during this semi-found footage account of teenage superhuman exploits that this isn’t a superhero story, this isn’t even the angst of the X-Men. Chronicle hews hard and close to the bark of the seminal anime Akira, whose influence is writ-large across this release. The iconography of Katsuhiro Otomo’s opus is abundant in Chronicle. Whether it be a character flying out of an exploding hospital ward, an emotionally fraught outsider becomes a monster and the all too telling sight of a blood curdling scream shattering windows in an ever-expanding shockwave. Like Tetsuo in that film, Chronicle follows alienated teen Andrew’s burgeoning psychokinetic powers, but this is not a story of great power or greater responsibility. This is a tale of unbridled rage tearing through a susceptible teenage mind. In other words: mo’ powers, mo’ problems.
The powers themselves are nothing new, we’ve seen a man fly but here you get to experience the thrill first hand as we take the perspective of Andrew’s trusty camcorder. If teenage boys had telekinesis they’d probably use it for Jackass-style pranks, that is a given fact. Certainly the life and times of Andrew’s repressed anger and domestic abuse and his decent into Frankenstein-like madness is a classic trope, but it’s effective enough and is wisely employed here. The cast of newcomers are game and clearly having a ball, and given how much fun their having you’ll be giggling too at their antics. Even when the Seattle-bound rampage brings the adolescent nihilism to a close, you’ll still be chuckling giddily.
Now let’s return to the notion of ‘found footage’, that is of course suggesting that the footage was indeed, found. This is perhaps the only glaring flaw to overshadow the giddily violent proceedings is the nature of the ‘document’ itself e.g. who is watching this? In Cloverfield we were under the impression that the video was confiscated and under analysis by shady government types, Blair Witch of course fooled viewers into believing what they saw as being real. Chronicle’s detachment from the style even distances itself from District 9, wherein the separation from documented footage and a narrative perspective was clear. Chronicle at times confuses given the quality of camera’s employed by the characters. MiniDV, HDV and iPhones are intercut with abandon, yet all of the footage cobbled from these sources looks better than what most prosumer cameras can achieve. At times it’s even harder to discern who’s camera is being used, as secondary characters (and their cameras) keep adding multiple perspectives and muddy the water further.
Chronicle can be taken as one of two things: Either the horror story of a deranged teenager or simply as a thrilling rollercoaster. The anime initiated will spot the Akira-inflected story and characterisation a mile off, above all of this however is the fact that you’re going to have a fabulous evening at the movies.
8/10
Film Review: The Grey
Liam Neeson’s career trajectory has always been one in a perpetual state of genre gymnastics. Dancing between critic pleasing fare (Schindler’s List, Nell) and schlocky action-packed diversions of varying quality (Taken, Rob Roy and the less said about The Phantom Menace, the better). His post-Taken ‘punches everyone’ rap has seen him rechristened as something of a born again action star. In fact, Neeson all but passed up the opportunity to fill the size 13s of the 16th President of the USA in Spielberg’s upcoming biopic ‘Lincoln’ (a central role now occupied by Daniel Day Lewis). The Grey sits oddly on the fence of Neeson’s recent output, its DNA most reminiscent of the tough-guy bonding pictures that put Walter Hill on the map.
Obviously the genre switcheroo is a little on the nose (Deliverance via Jaws etc). The film itself embeds itself within the 70’s wilderness survival trappings right down to the quasi-philosophy (‘once more into the fray’…) and the moral ambiguity that permeated the post-Nam psyche. After directing 2010’s limp A-Team adaptation, it was clear that Joe Carnahan needed to get back on his feet and sharpish. Setting course for the B-movie route never fails, foolproof thrills that are only screwed up by the man at the helm.
As a whole, The Grey suffers from droll pacing and a surplus of interchangeable, bickering roughnecks who all seem lucky enough to have either families, kids or that special someone to yearn for. Neeson’s character Ottway is plagued by flashbacks of his beau of a lady, shot in idyllic sunset hues bathed adoringly in angelic-blah blah blah. So far so cliché, so cliché in fact that the Ottway’s homebound predicament seems overly clinical in relation to his professional one (a wolf poacher contracted for population control, once he’s trapped in the wilderness it’s no wonder the wolves are pissed). Ottway needed a greater and tangible sense of desperation; the closest we get to genuine inner turmoil is mostly wrapped in unhelpfully enigmatic voiceover. The supporting cast gradually become more identifiable the plot thickens, but they too are saddled with worn out character tropes. As characters themselves, they are not much more than a blur of rugged machismo (wait, Dermot Mulroney was in this?!).
Other than its other faults (hokey CGI wolves, frantic wolf attacks comprised of dudes getting razzled by frantically thrashing wolves and frantically thrashing camera shakes, the result being rather frantic) The Grey certainly has more smarts behind it than would be expected after Liam Neeson’s recent role choices, but the film lacks true emotional heft due to an inherent emptiness in its core philosophy (‘keep fighting on’ yeesh). There is the appearance of substance, but none to truly speak of.
6/10.
Film Review: Haywire
After apparently turning his back on mainstream filmmaking (and briefly flirting with retirement) Steven Soderberg is –for the moment – still churning them out. Contagion barely opened four months ago, Haywire is released this weekend and the man is working on a semi-biography of Channing Tatum’s stint as a Chippendale with ‘Magic Mike’ , due for release in June. Despite the variety of movies under his belt however, Soderberg isn’t one to adapt to new (or indeed exisiting) rules. If The Bourne Identity is pumping techno, then Haywire is smooth jazz. Futhering the musical analogy, jazz has the power to captivate for the first ten minutes. That’s until you begin wishing that it’d just bloody well get on with it. Soderberg’s action scenes aim for 60’s era spy-hijinks, but they’re just too mellow. An experience akin to defusing a time bomb when the bomb squad is high on reefer.
Certainly Gina Carano (aka ‘Crush” on American Gladiators) has the prowess and the fighting chops, from a filmmaking perspective Soderberg is obviously taking the Robert Bresson perspective of casting a ‘model’ as opposed to an actor e.g. a non-performer required to be ‘blocked’ through a scene with little to no introspective reflection, the result illustrating some kind of disconnect from ‘performance’. Soderberg previously used this premise when he roped in hardcore porn star Sasha Grey to play an escort in the artsy-fartsy bore The Girlfriend Experience, the difference here –with Soderberg casting expert Muay Thai fighter Carano to play a stone cold killer- is that Sasha Grey was a better actress.
Carano simply isn’t charismatic, this is exacerbated when she’s paired up with the infinitely more magnetic likes of Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor. Even the (unfairly) derided Channing Tatum commands greater screen cred than her, indeed Soderberg’s choice to populate the supporting cast with such a recognisable line up backfires, he only succeeds in pointing out Carano’s inexperience. But even the supporting cast (including Bill Paxton, Mathieu Kassovitz and Michael Douglas et al) struggle to remain interested with a script that was somehow granted the mercy not to have landed on Steven Seagal’s desk.
Soderberg’s future is in limbo, Fassbender is on his way to superstardom and Gina Carano will probably be next seen the next time you visit Blockbuster, in-between Billy Blanks and Kevin Sorbo. A sad state of affairs, sadder still when you consider that this could have been the next Bourne. A flimsy, inconsequential story bundled with slack pacing and a director too smooth for his own good.
5/10.
Film Review: Shame
There should be a word of warning for filmmakers who attempt to leave the impression of the film to their audience, being impartial or ‘leaving it up to the viewer’ may represent some ideological integrity but it is reductive in the fact that catharsis, the emotional centre is underserved. It’s a shame indeed that Shame is so reserved emotionally, guesswork appears to suggest that the distant tone of the film is meant to mirror Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender, ever engaging and always magnetic) alienation from his peers and family. Cryptically though director Steve McQueen (the director of Hunger that is, not The Cooler King) at times demonstrates that he is all too aware of the emotional needs of his characters, but too often gets hung up on his burgeoning trademark motifs of extended takes and restricted coverage. A single protracted close-up of Sissy (Carey Mulligan) crooning ‘New York, New York’ may have been interesting as an editorial exercise, but with cinematography this restricted it’s often crying out for cuts.
McQueen’s filmmaking is as much exploitative as it is introspective, nothing wrong with either but they do share a pessimism in what they present. Make no mistake, Shame is a pessimistic film in the tradition of so called ‘social realism’. That said, it’s still folly to its own brand of tropes and clichés. If a character appears troubled and needy, it’s not surprising if said character turns up worse for wear later. Self-destruction is something at the heart of this and McQueen’s previous film, the problem is that this theme is not much more than a thinly explored veneer and one that is quickly worn out. Dramatically nihilism is much more satisfying than creation, but it’s comparable to a sugar rush.
A side effect perhaps of the film’s content, yes there is sex, reams of it. Full frontal, scenes of hetero and homosexual copulation and what appears to be unsimulated onscreen urination (the latter obviously being the offending article that got the film slapped with the dreaded NC-17 rating stateside), but for all the flesh on show here the film does run the risk of dramatically subduing us. There is a catharsis in all of this, but as stated earlier it culminates in a fizzle. Dramatically we’re as exhausted as Brandon, with our senses spent we’ve got nowhere to turn. Once again the impression of these scenes is probably evident in one’s reaction, but subjectivity can only carry a scene so far when the director’s convictions are elsewhere.
Overall there is little to complain about. At best it is a well intentioned, intelligent film that at worst suffers from sterile aesthetics and a lack of restraint. That said it is certainly more charismatic than the usual realist fare, Abi Morgan’s screenplay makes up for its typically miserablist set pieces with enthusiastic dialogue that pops and flows naturally from the game cast. At times the movie hints at a comparison with American Psycho (an unstable outsider socialising amongst a group of wealthy metrosexuals) but Shame has its eye more on tragedy than dark comedy. Unfortunately the film undercuts itself with so much emphasis on the visceral, in that sense you will find yourself struggling to keep up empathetically.
6.5
Film Review: War Horse
Here’s a morsel for Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of these British Isles to chew over in his current rut over the UK’s cinematic output: It’s taken an American Filmmaker to make a great British film. Why is that? It can’t be a cultural thing can it? We may have an answer in the aesthetics: Spielberg has shot the typically drizzly and overcast English countryside like the American Frontier. Bathed in a golden sunset and hewn far closer to Gone with the Wind than The Wind the Shakes the Barley. War Horse’s Devon may remind you more of Kansas than ol’e Blighty, this is the cinema of Hollywood’s Golden age. High melodrama backed by the finest symphonic score celluloid has to offer. This is not a story of nations, nor flags. This is classical storytelling told in a timeless tradition.
Where Spielberg traded visual storytelling for hyperactive overkill in Tintin, he rebounds with graceful aplomb in War Horse. This is a director and his cinematographer working in perfect unison, Spielberg commands every element of the screen, every shot, pan and edge of the frame tells the story. The camera moves to introduce characters within the frame. This is not filmmaking content with cuts telling us where and when to look. Michael Kahn’s editing compliments the onscreen action and never dictates it (as is typical of contemporary filmmaking).
The story of Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and his faithful horse Joey is a fairytale, unashamedly so. Parallels with Black Beauty are self-explanatory, this certainly shares much by way of narrative DNA but the setting expands it into a vast epic that stretches from rural English idylls to the barren ruin of The Battle of the Somme. Those battle sequences are tastefully executed, contrasting Saving Private Ryan’s seismic camera shakes and exploding viscera with the juxtaposition of life and the absence of life. In a sequence who’s methods may seem closer to classic Disney, a cavalry charge is mown down by machine gun fire. The horses and their riders charge toward the guns, the horses run past the guns without their riders. Not a drop of blood is shed and yet it is as harrowing as a three buckets worth.
The cast is populated with the best of the UK’s acting talent, so much so that such a stellar ensemble threatens to overshadow the central performance of Jeremy Irvine. This may indeed be the central flaw to the film, as we follow Joey through a multitude of what are basically subplots. The redeeming feature here is that Joey is the central character here and the triumph of the film is that we, as an audience, can make our way just fine with Joey. The combination of Joey and Albert is in that regard, a heart-warming perfect storm. The overriding sentiment is the separation of family, the reunion is the driving force behind everything that takes place from that point onwards.
These are big emotions at play here, and this is not a film that minces with subtext. This is filmmaking with its heart on its sleeve for audience to see. Those tears that are running down your face and into your popcorn? Those are tears of joy, tears of the realisation of the beauty and power of cinema. This is the work of a filmmaker with an utmost love of his craft and the heritage of film. A heartfelt symphony of pure cinema.
9/10
Film Review: The Artist
It’s easy to be reverential about nostalgia, how can you not be? After all we’re all inclined to go back to the roots at some point, but obviously we’re all too aware of what replaced the thing we look back to and as a result we can never separate our present from their past. This is something that probably (if unconsciously) plagued the writing and production of The Artist, a (semi) silent drama about the beginning of the talkies.
Unlike the seminal (is there a better word?) musical Singin’ in the Rain, which made a farce out of the technical hitches and learning curves surrounding the hasty induction of unsynchronised audio and bulky, clumsily hidden microphones (“speak into the bush!” “I can’t make love to a bush!”). Sound takes off without a hitch, leaving silent film thesp George Valentin (a superb breakout performance from Jean Dujardin) up mute creek without a boom pole. Sound is the enemy here, innocence is in the exaggerated gestures and, indeed, the ‘mugging’ that was in the lifeblood of the storytelling of silent medium.
Naturally the nostalgia at play here gives way to yearning and the tragedy of the advancement of time. Sound itself is employed as a weapon, from an inventive nightmare sequence to the threat that at any point a character may indeed (heaven forbid) speak. Which is probably the film’s defining fault, albeit this is an imperfection which will be mostly subjective. The experience of watching something with such a fluent understanding of the tropes of silent cinema is so refreshing that sound itself becomes underwhelming. The ending of the film may be feelgood, but you may find yourself wishing that writer/director Michel Hazanavicius had gone for broke and made the film entirely silent. Comparable to the sensation at the end of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: By the time the curse was lifted and the prince finally became human again, we’d fallen in love with the beast.
The Artist, like its namesake, is of course the story of a man watching his beloved craft get swept under the rug. Emotionally it hits every beat with aplomb, this is not simply a movie about the joy of filmmaking. It’s fundamentally nostalgia, yet it manages to elevate itself above just being a trendy retro-novelty (god knows, we’ve had enough of those). It understands the methods of the medium and exploits them into creating a moving piece of consummate storytelling. It’s too good at this in fact, so much so that you’ll wonder why movies need to speak at all. Even this one.
