Primarily a visual and auditory feast, The Artist is a riveting and entertaining tribute to old Hollywood, peppered with heart-rending scenes and profound humor only to be ended very lightly for the premise and story line it took.
The Good
- stimulating, riveting, good-natured, and easy to follow story
- not much dialogues to closely follow as it is a silent movie, making it more stimulating as you don't need to process words, but just gestures and orchestral pieces.
- completely replicated the magic of old Hollywood films, from charming stars to lively storyline
The Bad
- quite weird to experience a silent movie in an age where everyone talks even when they don't need to.
- unknown actors can alienate moviegoers if not for the Hollywood hype
- too light an ending
Synopsis
George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) meets a fan Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) after a screening of his silent film "A Russian Affair" in 1927 when a crowd pushes her into bumping him while the press where taking pictures outside the theatre. The funny encounter lead to another when Peppy was taken as an extra in Valentin's film, "A German Affair," which lead to an intimate moment between her and Valentin that encourages her to pursue stardom--initially taking extras then slowly graduating to larger supporting roles. By 1929, talkies (movies that feature speech) had started becoming popular; George Valentin vehemently rejects this as he sees talkies as nothing more but a fad--ultimately separating him and Kinograph which has decided to produce only talkies from then on. By this time, Miller has grown in popularity and has been signed on by Kinograph as one of its main stars in the talkies era. Not one to admit defeat, Valentin starts his own production of a silent movie entitled "Tears of Love," which apparently launches the same time as Peppy Miller's lead role debut in Kinograph's talkie, "Beauty Spot." What follows next is a series of heart-rending events that tests the friendship of The Artist and the Aspiring Beauty.
Silence is Golden
The Artist's main strength lies in the fact that it is for a good long time speechless. Sometimes, dialog cards are shown as with silent movies, but what really makes up for The Artist's voicelessness is the music they used and the highly enticing visuals. Dujardin and Bejo make up for a really charming pair and Uggie the dog is no different as he is very delightful and dear that you actually watch for when he is coming back on-screen. An article from CNN explains why The Artist works in a time where we have 3D in our movie houses (see here). And I would have to agree that it goes beyond "shutting down the surround sound." it's replicating what has been lost so magically well, it screams brilliance and ingenuity.
Sad Movies Make me Cry
After I've seen Roman Holiday early this year, I have concluded that films made during the Golden Age of Hollywood were clean and innocent--untarnished with violence and sex as with the movies we have today where the virtue is more often than not, "the dirtier, the better." How Audrey Hepburn managed to sleep in Cary Grant's room, drunk with drugs, and not get raped at all is impossible had Roman Holiday been remade in 2012. And this innocence is also present in The Artist. It's a movie made in our time, but was taken from another. And this magic that we miss is what makes this work irresistible.
You also can find the similar charm in Jean Dujardin's portrayal of George Valentin and Berenice Bejo's Peppy Miller. Their flawless portrayal will fool you into believing that they really belong to the 1920s. Valentin has that charm reminiscent to Bogart's and Grant's, the charm absent in today's leading men who are more of gritty personifications of Hollywood and whose life outside the camera is one for evading it. Not to mention the Tintin-Snowy-like partnership between Uggie the dog and Dujardin makes for adding color to the black and white flick.
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| The irresistible pair of Dujardin and Uggie tries to placate the angry wife to no avail. |
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| Miller fantasizes an embrace from Valentin only to be surprised by a lack of knock from reality. |
And speaking of adding color, there are too many visual delights in The Artist--enough to justify your seeing a black and white film. One of the most memorable ones being Peppy Miller making love to Valentin's coat. The way Hazanavicius pairs that particular scene with the "Scene d'Amour" score used in Vertigo is haunting and impeccable. The spare dialog, which you can count as they are flashed through dialog cards, are written well. They come as trickles in summer and completes the overall silent cinema feel. There are also some imaginative use of dialog and sound in this film as it is about the transition from silent films to talkies. The way sound was used to convey certain scenes is brilliant and worth writing home about.
As the movie moves to nearer and nearer to conclusion, heart-rending scenes will pour in more and more often, and given how likeable Dujardin has made his character, it will be impossible to not empathize. This exercise in empathy is however ruined by the too light-hearted ending. In my opinion, the movie could still have ended positively without feeling too hastily done. I really wouldn't mind extra minutes just for a better ending as I am enjoying myself anyway. Although, I must say, the last scenes in the ending were revelatory enough to placate me.
As the movie moves to nearer and nearer to conclusion, heart-rending scenes will pour in more and more often, and given how likeable Dujardin has made his character, it will be impossible to not empathize. This exercise in empathy is however ruined by the too light-hearted ending. In my opinion, the movie could still have ended positively without feeling too hastily done. I really wouldn't mind extra minutes just for a better ending as I am enjoying myself anyway. Although, I must say, the last scenes in the ending were revelatory enough to placate me.
My verdict:
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