“The invention of Hugo Cabret” was on the top of my priority to-watch list. The Academy Awards take place next week (though carnival is standing between me and my marathon! Help!) and the new Scorsese movie was the one with most nominations: 11 total! Including best picture, director, adapted screenplay and best cinematography.
I saw it in 3D. My first non-animation 3D. I was shocked with how high the quality was. The shots, the moving cameras. Sorry about the cliché, but it (literally) makes you feel inside the train station in Paris, where the story takes place.
It’s around the 20s, 30s, and it’s the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphan boy who secretly lives over the walls of the station, taking care of the clocks and whose life goal is to fix a boy-shaped appliance he inherited from his father.
Those who are used to see Scorsese’s mafia and violence movies should leave it all behind, since in this film (the first children’s feature of his career) you can see a movie lover (he pays a tribute to “The Arrival of a Train”, a 50-second film by the Lumière brothers, exhibited for the first time in 1895), playing with very sweet images, through some incredibly neat and sensitive close-ups and an exquisite performance by the actors.
It also tells the story of Georges Méliès, a cinema pioneer who, along with being considered “the father of special effects”, made over 500 films and built Europe’s first cinematographic studio.
Anyway… There are more than enough reasons to watch this movie. And I recommend you see it in 3D. Big screen! The effects are a fundamental part of it… I was really loving it by the end. The 20s and 30s Paris. The photography. Méliès’ history. Hugo Cabret. The boy (and his little eyes in deep close-ups!) won’t get out of my head… I loved, it! Thank you.
