Today's roundup of Cannes reviews includes two competition films: a joyful silent comedy recently acquired by the Weinstein Company, and a disturbing portrait of a child molester.
"The Artist"
There really aren’t adequate words to describe the way one feels after watching Michel Hazanavicius’ "The Artist." Appropriately enough, words fail. When "The King’s Speech" ad campaign led with “some movies you feel,” I wanted to cringe. But here I am faced with a film that really does deserve the slogan, because you DO feel it. You feel it from the top of your head all the way down to the toes of your feet: pure joy, pure happiness.
We were all wondering what to expect when we heard about this last-minute entry into the festival – a silent film, and in black-and-white. Most of us were thinking it would be more of the grim stuff Cannes has been digging up so far: abuse, alienation, torture, child molestation. Not knowing anything about the director or the actor, I went in with a blank slate.
And a blank slate is exactly how you should also see "The Artist." I advise, therefore, not reading any reviews at all. But if you’re curious about it, I'll try my best not to spoil the good parts.
"The Artist" is really a film about a filmmaker who wanted to try making a silent film. He didn’t just lazily attempt this, however. He thought it through very carefully, deciding what to leave in and what to leave out. Every tiny gesture and raise of the eyebrows matters, and all involved must be on the same page to get across the meaning of each scene.
You could tell just how connected the Cannes audience was because the most subtle humor got big laughs. Who knew that a tiny gesture by a dog could bring down the house?
Without dialogue, you have to watch and study the faces. These actors don’t overdo it the way silent movie actors did, which today feels alienating, given our intimate relationship with actors on the big screen. Here we’re given just enough, with the right expressions and actors who are also dancers and therefore used to conveying intention and emotion through movement. The director and the performers are in complete control from beginning to end.
The artist, played by Jean Dujardin, who is a leading contender for Best Actor in Cannes, cute-meets an up-and-coming starlet (Berenice Bejo). Sparks fly, but he’s married. The couple are forced to go their separate ways. Her career begins to take off while his starts to decline.
Dujardin has the same casual charm and graceful masculinity as Gene Kelly and the film, in its way, seems to nod to "Singing in the Rain," what with the blonde star (Missy Pyle) and the sweet ingenue. "The Artist" is also about that transition from silent films to talkies, but it is much more about the evolution of film. Why did we need to go from silents to talkies? Do we still need talkies? Or can a story be told as effectively without any dialogue at all? It isn’t that Hazanavicius wants to tell a story without dialogue – it’s that he wants to make a silent movie, complete with heavy-handed score, facially adept actors, and universally appealing story.
