The Artist Review
If you haven't heard the buzz around this film then you don't own a TV or an internet or a friend who's obsessed with movies. If not I'll break it down. The Artist is a French film that is almost wholly without heard dialogue (just music) and in black and white. You may think to yourself that sounds absolutely unbearable, there's a reason we got rid of silent movies in, like, the 1930s. If you thought this you'd kind of be right, except it went on to win 3 Golden Globes, 7 BAFTAS and 5 Academy Awards.... f***.
So what's this all about? Essentially it follows the story of some actor guy who performs in silent films then everyone is all like "silent films suck lol" and then this woman who he meets once is like "omg I love him" but becomes the next star. Then the guy gets all angry at everyone, but the girl saves him and also a dog does tricks. That may sound like a very cliched 90's teen drama (replace silent film with prom queen or something) but it is essentially that with less sound and instead of s***y 90's pop punk its a pretty sweet soundtrack.
So why all the praise? It isn't a necessarily bad film and there are some interesting uses of the silent-ness of the film along with some very good performances from the characters and brilliant nostalgia to a time before any of you were born, it's just that without the use of the silent-ness this would just have been another film.
The bulk of the film actually deals with the mental and financial breakdown of the lead and he trips a whole lot of balls. It's almost reminiscent of Black Swan but I don't think even that film was bonkers enough to have a man see a tiny version of himself shooting at him with a pack of African tribesmen behind him, but then again this film is French.
As a romance, which is what the film is billed as, it holds up alright with some great chemistry from the leads but they rarely actually see each other. They bump into each other maybe 5 times throughout the whole film and then boom she's hopelessly in love with him. There's an interesting reveal which may have suggested dark undertones to their relationship and could have completely shifted the film into a stalker-type situation but this is all jolly jolly tappity tappity so that's not going to happen.
So all in all not a bad film, but without the (dare I say it) gimmick of the silent-ness this would be a bog standard romance with an awesome dog. 6 out of 10. Oh yeah, I totally forgot, watch the film just for the dog.
So what's this all about? Essentially it follows the story of some actor guy who performs in silent films then everyone is all like "silent films suck lol" and then this woman who he meets once is like "omg I love him" but becomes the next star. Then the guy gets all angry at everyone, but the girl saves him and also a dog does tricks. That may sound like a very cliched 90's teen drama (replace silent film with prom queen or something) but it is essentially that with less sound and instead of s***y 90's pop punk its a pretty sweet soundtrack.
So why all the praise? It isn't a necessarily bad film and there are some interesting uses of the silent-ness of the film along with some very good performances from the characters and brilliant nostalgia to a time before any of you were born, it's just that without the use of the silent-ness this would just have been another film.
The bulk of the film actually deals with the mental and financial breakdown of the lead and he trips a whole lot of balls. It's almost reminiscent of Black Swan but I don't think even that film was bonkers enough to have a man see a tiny version of himself shooting at him with a pack of African tribesmen behind him, but then again this film is French.
As a romance, which is what the film is billed as, it holds up alright with some great chemistry from the leads but they rarely actually see each other. They bump into each other maybe 5 times throughout the whole film and then boom she's hopelessly in love with him. There's an interesting reveal which may have suggested dark undertones to their relationship and could have completely shifted the film into a stalker-type situation but this is all jolly jolly tappity tappity so that's not going to happen.
So all in all not a bad film, but without the (dare I say it) gimmick of the silent-ness this would be a bog standard romance with an awesome dog. 6 out of 10. Oh yeah, I totally forgot, watch the film just for the dog.