Jay Lake: Writer

[movies] Hugo

Yesterday, Mother of the Child took me and the_child to the cinema, where we saw Hugo [ imdb ].

My advice to you is that if you have any love whatsoever for movies, stop what you’re doing, go to the cinema, and see this pronto. I’m very afraid it won’t last long, given the broad tastes of the American film-going audience, and if I’m right, that will be a crime. Then come home and make notes for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. I certainly plan to nominate Hugo for a Hugo Award.

This movie is a love letter from Martin Scorsese to the early history of cinema, and specifically the films of French director Georges Méliès. Méliès made some of the first science fiction and fantasy films, so it is topical to our field (and its award processes) in that sense. Furthermore, the movie itself while not a fantasy per se is decidedly inspired by the breath of the fantastic. It’s also got some glorious clockpunk, cool steam trains, Paris in the years between the wars, and a heart-rending story. I wept at the end.

Hugo is a visual feast, and also talks a lot about the creative process, both explicitly in the film’s narrative and implicitly in the way the film was made. I cannot recommend this highly enough, and I suspect the movie will need all the audience support it can get due to a lack of explosions, car chases, star destroyers and whatnot so beloved of holiday films. I very much I hope I am wrong about this last.

Tags: Awards, Movies, Process, reviews

Posted: 8:47 am Sun November 27 2011 |

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