CInema review: Hugo

Paris 1930, a young orphan embarks on a mysterious quest.

In the last few years it looked like Scorsese was suffering from the “Important auteur” syndrome. Regarded by many as the best filmmaker in the world his movies became longer and longer with very confuse plotting and lethargic pacing. I don’t know if he realized this but first he directed last year the excellent “Shutter Island” and this year finally he returned to the top form of his beginnings.

“Hugo” is a magical story. I don’t want to spoiler the plot and the various revelations, suffice to say that this is an extended homage to the cinema beginnings. An homage that manages to capture the magic of those pioneeristic works without being pedantic. See it’s often very difficult to quote an earlier work without sounding like a textbook or, even worse, without making it an inside joke for those “smart” fans. In a stroke of genius Scorsese makes his protagonist actually go to the cinema and see a bunch of those earlier works before redoing them for the modern audience so that everybody is up to date on what’s going on.

In a fascinating move Scorsese decided also to do a movie about cinema beginning using the most advanced technologies at his disposal. So this movie is in 3D, native 3D not awful conversion job, and it’s probably the best 3D ever. Scorsese uses it in a marvelous way; James Cameron itself said that its way better than what we did on “Avatar”.

This is a dramatic fable with an original plot that will capture you from the beginning till the very end. The movie eschews those boring Hollywood formulas to give us a letter of love to the power and the magic of storytelling.

Highly recommended.