"Hugo" (Potential Spoilers behind cut)
Jan. 3rd, 2012 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwYesterday, Geo and I went to see Hugo. What a fantastic movie! If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend (in 3D if possible). But be warned: It might not be the movie you've been told about.
I hadn't heard much about the movie except 1) It's about film preservation; and 2) It's about George Meliés. In actuality? Neither of these statements is accurate. Both are misleading.
Being married to a film preservationist (though not nearly as knowledgeable on the subject as he), I of course appreciate Hugo as an homage to early film and the need for film preservation. At one point, it even ran through the back of my mind, "Ah, here's the PSA of the movie." However, George Meliés and early film is the "dressing" of the story, if you will, not the story itself.
The main character is a boy named Hugo Cabret. Son of a widowed inventor and watchmaker, Hugo loses his father in a fire. Prior to this horrible accident, Mr. Cabret had found in the attic of the museum where he worked an automaton, one that was more complex than anything he'd ever seen. It became their obsession to get the automaton working again. After his father's death, Hugo's drunkard uncle comes to retrieve him and take him to the train station to live. Uncle maintains the clocks in the station, you see, and so he took Hugo as an apprentice. Hugo lives in the walls of the station, forgotten and alone, keeping the clocks in working order and working on repairing the automaton.
During the course of the movie, Hugo encounters an old toymaker and his goddaughter, must dodge getting caught by the station inspector and sent to the orphanage, and desperately seeks his place in the world. There's excitement, adventure, danger, love. Fantasy, and the reality of dreams.
The Meliés aspect of the movie is intriguing and enchanting, to be sure, and work very well into, enhance, and play a part of the larger story. And I enjoyed the "old movie" aspect of it and know well the importance of film preservation (see Geo's movie These Amazing Shadows, also available on Netflix On Demand).
But the movie isn't about movies, not really, except inasmuch as movies bringing people together, firing the imagination, and creating dreams.
No, this movie is about relationships. Every major character--and even the minor ones--has lost something or is seeking something: a relationship and purpose in life.
The heart of the story is about finding family and finding one's place in the world. "Machines don't come with extra parts. What if the world is a big machine? I must have a purpose." It is about family--birth family, adopted family, having no family, creating family. It is about not doing life alone, finding someone to connect with, who can help you find and fulfill your purpose.
For me (who is hoping to adopt in the relatively near future), this isn't a love letter to movies. This is a movie about family, relationships, and not giving up. It's the heartfelt story of a boy, lonely and displaced in the world, and how he finds his place, his purpose, and his "people."
And I've got no problem admitting that I spent a goodly portion of the movie with tears running down my face.
I hadn't heard much about the movie except 1) It's about film preservation; and 2) It's about George Meliés. In actuality? Neither of these statements is accurate. Both are misleading.
Being married to a film preservationist (though not nearly as knowledgeable on the subject as he), I of course appreciate Hugo as an homage to early film and the need for film preservation. At one point, it even ran through the back of my mind, "Ah, here's the PSA of the movie." However, George Meliés and early film is the "dressing" of the story, if you will, not the story itself.
The main character is a boy named Hugo Cabret. Son of a widowed inventor and watchmaker, Hugo loses his father in a fire. Prior to this horrible accident, Mr. Cabret had found in the attic of the museum where he worked an automaton, one that was more complex than anything he'd ever seen. It became their obsession to get the automaton working again. After his father's death, Hugo's drunkard uncle comes to retrieve him and take him to the train station to live. Uncle maintains the clocks in the station, you see, and so he took Hugo as an apprentice. Hugo lives in the walls of the station, forgotten and alone, keeping the clocks in working order and working on repairing the automaton.
During the course of the movie, Hugo encounters an old toymaker and his goddaughter, must dodge getting caught by the station inspector and sent to the orphanage, and desperately seeks his place in the world. There's excitement, adventure, danger, love. Fantasy, and the reality of dreams.
The Meliés aspect of the movie is intriguing and enchanting, to be sure, and work very well into, enhance, and play a part of the larger story. And I enjoyed the "old movie" aspect of it and know well the importance of film preservation (see Geo's movie These Amazing Shadows, also available on Netflix On Demand).
But the movie isn't about movies, not really, except inasmuch as movies bringing people together, firing the imagination, and creating dreams.
No, this movie is about relationships. Every major character--and even the minor ones--has lost something or is seeking something: a relationship and purpose in life.
The heart of the story is about finding family and finding one's place in the world. "Machines don't come with extra parts. What if the world is a big machine? I must have a purpose." It is about family--birth family, adopted family, having no family, creating family. It is about not doing life alone, finding someone to connect with, who can help you find and fulfill your purpose.
For me (who is hoping to adopt in the relatively near future), this isn't a love letter to movies. This is a movie about family, relationships, and not giving up. It's the heartfelt story of a boy, lonely and displaced in the world, and how he finds his place, his purpose, and his "people."
And I've got no problem admitting that I spent a goodly portion of the movie with tears running down my face.
