Hugo (Time)

Hugo 

Hugo's Poster

One of the films that I saw recently and really enjoyed it was Hugo,directed by Martin Scorsese that was released in December 2011.The genre of this film is drama and adventure but also a lot of history about the film industry is involved. The story is set in Paris,1930's during the winter time,a young boy named Hugo Cabret ends up an orphan after his father who was a watchmaker dies in a fire and ends up living at the train station walls winding the clocks of the station. Hiding in the walls, Hugo have an automaton a robot like that can dance,sing,write and more but functions only with a clock and heart-shaped key is inserted. . Before his father dies they were already working to fix the automaton, now he was willing to do anything to make it work because it was the only thing he had of his late father.In order to do this he steals little parts and tools  from a model shop that is located at the station to fix the automaton. The owner once catches the boy and takes anything found in the boy's pocket including a notebook with sketches and annotations about the automaton,the owner tells Hugo that he was going to burn the notebook.Hugo meets a young girl Isabelle, who is the god-daughter of the same shop owner,they became friends.They start an adventure together, Hugo takes her to watch a movie, something that she never saw, and Isabelle takes him to the library.Hugo mentions to her once his father saw a movie were a rocket hits the moon's eye.

Hugo

Automaton 

The story begins when Hugo discovers that the heart-shaped key wears it Isabelle as necklace.He unlocks the secret of the automaton and when they enter the key, the automaton works and starts drawing and signs it with the name Georges Melies. Now they have a mystery to solve that Hugo's father left. They realise that the drawing is the same image that Hugo mentions before and that  Georges Melies is the owner of the same shop and Isabelle's god-father. From now on there are scenes regarding history of the film industry. They learn that Georges Melies was a great film-maker, and one of the first to produce,write,direct and act in a movie.Once during their research in the library Hugo and Isabelle met professor Tabad, who wrote the same book that they are reading as part of their research, Tabad  was a great fan of Melies movies. Tabad believes that Melies died during World War I, until Isabelle and Hugo arrange to come and meet Melies. The professor has a room with a collection dedicated to Georges Melies including an original film that was the only one left and a masterpiece with the name :"A Trip to the Moon" ( Le Voyage dans la Lune,1902). When professor Tabad together with Isabelle and Hugo go to her house, Tabad shows them the movie, Melies soon discovers that his films aren't all destroyed but some of them survived even after the war, he later tells them how it all started in working in films.Hugo's uncle dies and the inspectors clears out the station wall, even the automaton, Hugo's wills to do anything to save the automaton including the possibility of getting hit by a train. In the end everything goes well, and the automaton is saved. Now the people can ejoy again the films of the great film-maker Georges Melies. 

Setting

This film has that magical, fantasy, mystery and adventure element. It's setting is in Paris, during the 1930's, snow is falling, winter's  cold, people are dressed very elegant and chic. A magical atmosphere is created due to the lights setting, and a cold colour temperature picture style. Some black and white scenes are included, these scenes features original films of Georges Melies. Some scenes from ariel view of Paris were shot which made Paris look magical and beautiful. The story is part fiction and the rest is based on a true story /history.

Scenes of Paris 

The classic image of the moon

Theme: Time

The theme of time is shown throughout the whole movie, since  it has history in it. It is during the early 20th century and the machine industry was in its boom. People could afford to buy the necessaries and even had the money to spend on clothes, furniture and more. At the train station one could find shops and markets, it was sign that there was commerce. As I mentioned before this movie is about the history of film making, in 1895 one of the first movie was shown, it was called "A Train Arrives at the Station" by the Lumiere Brothers who thought that film making wasn't going to be of great importance in the future. Georges Melies believed that films can capture dreams. Originally he started out as a magician until he saw a film by the Lumiere Brothers on the 28th of December 1895, he was impressed and asked the brothers to buy the camera but the offer was refused.The movies had live music but no speech. It was until he built a film set which was made out from glass to have direct sunlight.Due to the sunlight, the only time for films to be produced was during the day only. Unfortunately war  hasn't been kind with the old movies, but destroyed them. World War I began, men had to fight during war, poverty, suffering and death took over  in reality. The war ended the beauty of youth and hope, the soldiers that made it back home were bored of movies, they have seen the harsh reality. Melies had an order to send all the tapes to melt them into chemicals and make shoe heels from them.He got so upset that he destroyed everything including the set and props, and ended up working in a model shop that he opened himself. Back to the film, Hugo's perfect timing managed to save the automaton from being trashed, even he was saved from the police inspector from being ran over by a train. The events that happened to the characters in the story  affected their behaviour such as Georges Melies was no longer a happy man like before but suffered from depressions when flashbacks occurred in his mind. Hugo was quite inquisitive and persistent since he had a target to solve his father mystery. The war was a time of change and ended the peaceful life they were living. War time changed the perspective of films and were seen as boring, waste and useless. By time though people got back on their feet and film industry was taking a new form, new concepts were developing and the stories were no longer simple.

Reflections  

I personally really enjoyed watching it also I learned a lot from it. Now I know how the film industry started and by whom. "A Trip to the Moon" is the first science fiction movie which is 10 minutes long, it is incredible. I was impressed by the imagination people had during those years and managed to do a good product for that time. The setting reminded me of winter and Christmas, even since I love vintage clothing I enjoyed seeing those beautiful clothes. At first I thought that it was going to be a boring and childish film, but from the first scene realised that it is an excellent movie. I loved every minute of the story as I learned a lot from it too. There are some steampunk elements too in  it especially the automaton robot and the clocks which were a significant to steampunk and inspired from Victorian era.