HUGO is about a journey of a twelve years old orphan named Hugo Cabret in discovering the secrets of an automaton found by his father at a museum in the early 1930's. Hugo's father was a mechanic and both father and son were tried hard in searching the key to solve the mystery of the automaton. Hugo's however was later burned to death in the museum and Hugo believes that the automaton contains of his father's messages for him. In his journey to find out his father's messages, he meets George Melies, a shopkeeper and Isabelle, Melies' granddaughter and starts to unlock all the mystery one by one.
The plot of this film is good and easy to understand. It has arranged in a good order to link the story to the history of a famous filmmaker, George Melies and one of his famous work of all time, A Trip to the Moon (1902). It first shows Hugo get caught by George Melies in his shop, meet Issabelle, Melies' goddaughter, found the key of the automaton and it draw a moon with a spaceship lodged in its eye, found over 500 pieces of drawing- Melies's works and finally the revealing of George Melies's history, a well-trained magician that later changed to become a filmmaker in 1986, the first to use techniques such as the fade-in, the fade fade-out, and the dissolve to create the first real narrative films but wrought with poverty due to the changing industry and end up become a shopkeeper. Basically, this film is telling us a real story through a fantastic plotted story in which we are not watching only for plesure but we are actually watching at the history of real George Melies, Father of Special Effect.
The film also show a connection between George Melies and Lumiere Brothers where it shows the flashback of Melies meeting the Lumiere Brothers in a theater and how Melies was inspired, fascinated and motivated by the old filmmaking machine while its playing black and white film. It also show a connection where Lumiere Brothers refused to sell their cinematographe equipment to Melies and he bought a projector from Robert W. Paul and a Bioscope camera, builds his own glass studio and makes his own movies with his magic tricks, handmade sets, props, costumes and make up.
The setting of this film is also incredible. Apart of the winter setting and steam from the train station to ablance the warm and passionate of every role in the film, the director uses CGI train station and early 30' Paris view to enhance the mood of love and historical theme best represent George Melies, the French filmmaker. The director uses the stunning 3D cinematography of Hugo much like palimpsest, layering multiple levels of historical, cinematic, and intellectual history in each scene.
The director, Martin Scorsese has delivered George Melies' story beautifully and done a good job in telling a history yet maintaining the fantasy feeling and motivates people that hopes are everywhere for everyone to reach the impossibilities in their life. This is definitely a good film for people who are looking for adventures and at the same time explore the history of the filmmakers without bored themselves to nothing.
References:
http://brightlightsfilm.com/76/76hugohaas_johnson.php#.U8f4YfldV8E
http://brightlightsfilm.com/75/75hugo_dima.php#.U8f4YfldV8E
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204443404577054623487923242
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hugo-2011
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2011/12/07/hugo-scorseses-birthday-present-to-georges-melies/
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/02/from-m-li-s-to-montparnasse-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-hugo/253409/
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