Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Artist (2011)

Director: Michel Hazanavicius. Cast: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell. 100 min. Rated PG-13. France/Belgium. Drama/Romance.

Making a silent black-and-white feature film today is an incredible accomplishment in itself. Knowing this beforehand, I was also looking to see whether the film goes anything beyond its "cool" postmodern style. Well, it does. The 1930s switch from silent films to talkies and how actors struggled during the switch, is apparently a metaphor on how one should literally scream to survive. But the astonishing elements here are the soundtrack (actually performing the dialogue), and the casting of Dujardin and Bejo, whom you fall in love with from the very beginning. Interesting to know how they would do in "talkies".

Mo says:

2 comments:

  1. I saw it yesterday & I think it was one of the best brilliant romantic movies ever maid...100 minute breathless watching with absolute enjoyment and all happened just by a black&white silent movie in 2012 ....when it finished I applauded wildly and the rest audiences accompanied me . I wanna bet my jettons on this movie this year !

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  2. I would have given the movie a "MoMagic" score, but I have to say, I was very slightly bored in the middle of the film. Very minimally.

    But those last few minutes of tap-dancing completely blew me away. I've read Dujardin and Bejo were practicing for 5 months to get that last sequence right.

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