The Artist

There are some movies which make you feel they were alright but something minor was missing. There are some movies which make you feel, how do these guys even come up with such ideas, its brilliant, but the effect is just exterior. Then, there are those, which transcend both these categories, and they speak right to your heart. The Artist, undoubtedly, belongs to the third category. In an era, where cinema is running ahead at the rate of knots, where dimensions are being added, and technology is impacting it in a way like never before, the sound effects are getting better every single day, this movie, a throwback to the 1920s silent era, might sound like an aberration, but it isn't one, it is more of an anomaly. I don't remember the last time I saw a film that impacted me so much.

The storyline is simple. George Valentin, played in an Academy Award winning performance by the very talented Jean Dujardin, is a silent movie star. While the world around him changes to talking, he is stubborn, and believes that talking is for the kids. A chip off the old block, the star finds his world crashing around him, but is not ready to change for the "better". After a while, his past begins to catch up with him. The story of the rise, and fall, and possibly rise again of a superstar, is something even the Indian audiences are used to. This is the story of a million films, like Fashion, Victory, Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal (Tamil), more recently The Dirty Picture and is a storyline which every classy director has toyed with in his or her own way. But, what stands out here, is the presentation. Firstly, it is a silent tribute to that era of films when talking was unknown commodity. This is more a silent film on the lines of the silent films of the 1920s era, in the sense that, there are dialogues conveyed through placards when the need arises, unlike other silent films of the modern era, for instance Kamal Haasan’s Pushpak, where the need to talk just doesn’t arise throughout the script. Considering the former is a biopic, it is impossible to rule out any dialogues in the script, and the director doesn’t display artificiality by trying to do the same.

The strongest aspect of the script is the symbolisms present throughout the movie. The movie lives on its symbolisms, to the extent that at some point of time you are just bored of catching them.  For instance, the place where he releases a silent movie he directs and produces, in parallel with a talkie starring an upcoming star, and his movie bombs, it is presented with his character in the movie caught in a quagmire, and slowly losing his life going right into it, and an End card pops up into the screen. Another example would be, when he sells all his stuff at an auction, and walks away, his once romantic interest, now a big star, sadly eyes him walk away from the place, and the shop right above his head, is called Lonely Man. There are just a couple of the million references the director has pushed into the movie.

Finally, the movie is nothing without Uggie. Uggie, the dog, is a star in its own right. It acts like a pro, and provides some of the most memorable moments of the watching. The blink-and-miss act in the pre-climax is out of the world. As Vasuki was saying, he definitely deserved an equivalent of the Oscar for the best supporting actor. I feared before watching the movie about sleeping mid-way, due to the absence of any talking. But, the movie doesn’t give any scope for that. Engages you through the 96 minutes of viewing, and leaves you with an indelible smile on the face when it gets over. The Academy presented Slumdog Millionaire, and The King’s Speech with Best Picture awards, in the last 3 years, both good films, but not really worth the best award of the night. I really don’t know how good or not Hugo is, but I’m sure giving the award to the Artist is something anyone would contemplate plainly for its innovation in a given old setup, new wine in old bottle rather. Artist – visual pleasure!