A Cat in Paris

A Cat in Paris (or Une Vie de Chat in its original French) is a hand-drawn gem of modern animation.  Created by the French animation studio, Folimage, the film keeps to beautiful 2D animation and tells a rich story in a very short amount of time.  It was nominated for best animated feature in 2011 and creates a just enough danger and mystery without making the film too scary for children.

The film has a very lean plot that may not grab the youngest viewers.  In Paris, Zoe has a cat who wanders off every night.  She and her mother don’t know that he helps a thief, Nico, a man who recently has been stealing art and jewels.  At home, Zoe is mostly taken care of by the housekeeper, while her mother works hard as a detective.  Recently, Zoe’s father was killed by a gangster, Victor Costa, and her mother desperately wants to bring justice to him.  When Zoe decides to follow her cat on his nightly journey, she stumbles into Costa’s latest plot and needs to be rescued by her cat and his new friend.

In just over an hour, the film wastes no time packing all this action and creating memorable scenes, characters and very beautiful animation.  Just like in Zoe’s life, there isn’t much needless fluff.  Conversations with her mother are short and to the point.  Costa and his men don’t play around, if they did they might not have seemed so dangerous.  And there is no time for songs like in many animated films, here it would detract from the beautiful simplicity of the film.

While it’s animation can seem rather simplistic, it also has a highly artistic feel and brings unexpected beauty, especially in the climax.  With a film set in Paris, it’s impossible not to think of artists to compare this style of animation to.  The credits especially reminded me of Saul Bass’ work in film and the clean, geometric style reminds me of many modern artists with a dash of Picasso.  And when the action takes us to the rooftops of Paris and Notre Dame, the animation keeps up wonderfully, breathing new life into the familiar scenes.

Though A Cat in Paris may not become a quick favorite for most children, it’s worth a watch and suitable for the whole family (and in English on Netflix Instant).  Who knows, with the artistic style, the slightly noir story and Hitchcock influences, the film could bring some be a new and wonderful influence in a child’s film vocabulary.  This didn’t beat Cars 2 out of the best animated film Oscar nomination for nothing.

“It’s the daughter, she heard everything!”

Hugo

Young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) finds comfort in imagining that the entire world is a machine, because in a machine, there are no extra parts.  In that idea, he, everyone and everything around him have a purpose.

It is obvious to see where he develops this understanding.  Before his father (Jude Law) died, he taught Hugo how to fix clockwork.  Now as an orphan, he keeps all the clocks running in a Paris train station.  Like a twentieth century Quisimoto, he observes the people within the station from his hiding places.  They have their purposes inside the station.  Passengers, conductors, the flower shop girl, cafe owner with a little dog are all benign.  However, the toy shop keeper (Ben Kingsley) is out to get Hugo for stealing and the inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) would send him to the orphanage if he ever got a hold of him.

Along with keeping the station’s clocks running, Hugo is determined to fix an automaton he and his father were working on together.  If working properly, it should write a message, one Hugo hopes would bring him some last connection to his father.  But it requires a mysterious key, and the more Hugo works on the automaton, the more enveloped he becomes in the mystery surrounding it.

One of the fondest memories Hugo has about his father is going to the movies.  Stories Hugo heard of seeing a rocket landing in the eye of the man in the moon sounds like an old legend.  As the mystery unfolds, it brings out the influence and importance of early film, film preservation and the ways movies bring people together.  In terms of themes closes to Martin Scorsese’s heart, Hugo may be one of his proudest works.  His nomination for Best Director is well deserved.

In addition to Best Director, there are ten other Oscar nominations Hugo is competing for: Best Picture, Art Direction, Costume Design, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects and Adapted Screenplay.  As you can see, many of them come from how technically compelling the film is.

For a film buff, some of the most amazing scenes are watching turn of the century silent movies in production.  To see them recreated, in film so vivid and colorful you feel you are right there, is a surreal experience.  It really does feel like watching dreams being made.  I was first introduced to Georges Melies in college, my professor describing his films as magic tricks.  They truly were and still are.

Personally, I view 3D as a gimmick and fad in film, but the use of 3D in Hugo is like nothing else I have ever seen.  There are no cheap tricks and the colors do not feel dulled.  Instead, the 3D brings out the depth of the scenes in amazing layers.  As Hugo runs through the train station and within its walls, the camera follows in magnificent long-shots that unfold in a lovely fluid movement and we feel transported as the surroundings and layers of steam rush by.  Its been said that Scorsese wore clip-on 3D lenses of over his glasses to assist in the cinematography and get a better grip on how the final film would turn out in 3D.  I have to say, whatever Scorsese did, he should keep on doing it.

“My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians.  Come and dream with me.”

If the Academy is looking to award a magical film for all ages that reminds us how important film history and preservation is, Hugo will win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Seventh Heaven

Since we’re onto the inaugural year of the Oscars, I feel a little history is in order.  The very first Academy Awards was held on May 16,1929 and honored the films made in 1927 and 1928.  There were only twelve awards presented and of those twelve categories, only six are still honored today:  lead actor, lead actress, cinematography, director, art direction, adapted screenplay and picture.  The whole ceremony was only fifteen minutes long, with no live coverage and the winners were notified three months prior.  Today, we’re in the middle of the 83rd Oscar season, clucking about ten Best Picture nominees and two dozen awards to be announced over nearly four hours on a Sunday night.  My, times sure have changed.

Our first-first Best Picture nominee, is Seventh Heaven, a silent film about hope, love and war.  In Paris, Chico (Charles Farrell) works in the sewers and dreams of becoming a respectable street washer.  Diane (Janet Gaynor) is poor and at the mercy of her absinthe addicted sister Nana (Gladys Brockwell) who beats her regularly.  A relative offers to take the sisters in, but only if they have been keeping themselves clean and decent.  Diane is an honest girl, confesses to Nana’s drinking and the girls are left on their own.  Nana is so furious, she chases Diane, beating her in the street.  Thankfully Chico pops out of the sewer and intervenes, saving Diane.

For his good deed and to help Chico gain some faith, he is appointed to street washer.  But when the police try to arrest Diane, Chico saves her again claiming that she is his wife.  Now, he has to let Diane stay at his place so that when the police check it can look like she lives there.  Chico is a tough guy and tells Diane not to get comfortable, her stay will only be temporary.  To his surprise, they fall in love, but when war breaks out Diane and Chico may not have much time together.

One moment that really impressed me in this film, was the long shot up the stairs when we first go to Chico’s apartment.  The camera rises steadily as we watch Chico and Diane ascend six flights of stairs and one ladder without cutting away.  The idea for making this set is quite ingenious for the time and when we count the floors we realize where the title comes from.

The best thing about silent films is that they have to show and not tell.  That’s where so many movies today go wrong, they make dialogue a crutch and leave us nothing to interpret through our eyes.  Here, dialogue must be boiled down only to the most necessary lines and they must fit on the screen in large type.

With less dialogue comes more expression from the actors, a huge mark in the silent era.  Nana must always look menacing while Diane more meek and downtrodden.  As the film goes on, Diane becomes more confident and independent, but again this must be shown, she can only explain it in so many words.

I realize the silent film enthusiast are far and few, but seeing a few really is key to understanding film history.  If you’re on the fence or merely curious, there are plenty of silent era bits on YouTube, including the very first Best Picture winner, Wings.  Seventh Heaven is available on DVD through Netflix, it’s a miracle how well these films have survived the past eight decades.

“I work in the sewer, but I live nears the stars.”

Moulin Rouge

Haven’t we come across this one before?  Ah, Moulin Rouge from 2001 is a remake while this Moulin Rouge is the original.  Directed by John Huston and pulled together by an independent studio, I got the feeling I would enjoy this.

The story fictionalizes the life of Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (José Ferrer), who spends his time drinking and sketching the dancers on table cloths at the Moulin Rouge.  It isn’t until the crowd has left that Toulouse stands and we see he is unusually short, just in the legs, triggering a sudden burst of sympathy and mystery about him.  As if the film sensed my curiosity, we get the back story: he’s from a well to do family (father being a Count), rode for the hunt and was taught to dance eloquently, family with big mansion on estate. But as a boy he fell down the stairs, breaking both legs badly and they are stunted.  No woman will ever love him because of this, so he moved to Paris to become a painter.

One night leaving the Moulin Rouge he comes across Marie (Colette Marchand), one of the dancers at the Moulin Rouge, being harassed.  Toulouse steps in and boldly claims that she is with him.  He lets her stay the night and an unlikely friendship forms, even love.  But there are risks and jealousies that plague a relationship with a girl from the Moulin Rouge.  Their initial relationship is short, best to let birds fly, but their paths may cross again.

His pain from losing Maria is what seems to put his painting career into overdrive and soon he’s a success, but he drinks way too much.  Isn’t that how we imagine artists of all sorts?  Poor by choice and drunk as skunks.

Let’s discuss the differences between the two like named films.  2001 is a flashy musical focusing on a love story between a dancer and a poor writer.  Toulouse is the name of a minor character, who kinda wrangles the protagonist into the bohemian revolution.  In comparison, 1952 is much more subdued, except for one scene in the MR near the beginning there is no singing and the love story isn’t all that lovely.  1952 focuses on the art, Toulouses’s paintings, the post impressionist movement and Toulouse’s life in general.  Also, I doubt today’s viewers would want to see a love story between a dancer and a guy with stubby legs, so push him to the back for some comic relief and send in MacGregor for the sex appeal.

Being the ex-art student with a love of the Van Gogh era this film is more appealing than the 2001 version.  On a more personal level, I found myself able to relate to the story behind poor Toulouse’s crippled condition.  But for today’s average viewer, they’ll probably get more into 2001.  I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys post impressionist art or anyone who can relate to physical setbacks.

“One should never meet a person whose work one admires; What they do is always so much better than what they are!”

Moulin Rouge!

I’m not just excited.  This movie is titled with an exclamation point, and with good reason.  Moulin Rouge! is punctuated in fantastic intensity.  With rich in color, music, dance and eccentric characters this remake of the 1952 film intensifies and brings new life into the classic story set in Paris during the Bohemian Revolution.

The film tells us that this is a story about Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love.  That’s a little too abstract.  It is classic story of a poor young man, Christian (Ewan McGregor), who naively travels to Paris to become a writer in the Bohemian Revolution and ends up falling in love with a prostitute from the Moulin Rouge, Satine (Nicole Kidman).  Their love is kindled when Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke (Richard Roxburgh), a sniveling yet powerful client who would be able to fund her acting career and get Satine out of the Moulin Rouge.  Through this hilarious mistake, Satine tricks the Duke into funding Christian’s play to be performed at the Moulin Rouge in exchange that Satine belong exclusively to the Duke.  From here on all who want the play to go on must jump though hoops to hide the love between Christian and Satine from the Duke.

The first half of the film is bright, colorful and full of quick energy.  With Absinthe being the popular drink of the time, it seems as if the film tries to convey the feeling of drinking it, or encouraging one to try it.  Just follow the green fairy to the cartoonish scene of mistaken identities that takes place within the extravagant setting of a two story elephant room.   The over the top sexuality Nicole Kidman portrays here shows the lengths that women of the Moulin Rouge go through to fake it for their clients.  At times, usually in the throws of song, reality dissolves around the lovers and magic sparkles in an effort to make the viewer’s heart sing.  It’s pretty affective.

Things get more serious in the second half.  The risk of being caught by the Duke rises every minute.  The bubbly editing and rainbow of colors become more serious.  Reds and blues are most present to show the growing pain and mounting rage within the two men.  Everything leads into a spectacular climax, where the lights, colors and drama peak.  The story, and play within, is brought to the very brink of unravelment and spring back to knock the wind out of the audience.

Now please remember, this film is a musical.  It was the first one nominated for Best Picture in decades, so that puts a good bit of merit behind it.  But if you are one who doesn’t enjoy singing and dancing, or just becomes annoyed with sappy love songs, I’ve given you fair warning.

But it is the breath taking songs and masterful choreography that really engrosses the viewer.  Without it, this would just be another love story.  The songs are ones we’ve all heard today:  Roxanne by The Police, Your Song by Elton John, just to name a couple.  You’ll recognize more in their new light.

The Roxanne number, or El Tango de Roxanne, is especially stirring.  The harsh singing with the rough and intense dancers says more than words can about the relationship between prostitutes and the men who try to love them.  If you’re put off by musicals, just Youtube the Roxanne scene for fun.

There is one musical number that just feels too forced; the Like a Virgin scene.  True, in the movie, the explanation behind the scene is a bit forced, but it’s too much.  The bright side of this scene is that there is a shot of jell-o boobs.  It’ll make you smile.

One of the best scenes, musical or not, is when we first enter the Moulin Rouge.  Here, the wealthy (and no doubt, horny) men dance into the Moulin Rouge singing “Here we are now, entertain us.”  Mixing a bit of Nirvana with a rendition of a pulsing can-can, a modern nightclub feeling comes to the 1900 setting.  The women welcome their clients with a colorful display of erotic dancing and flashing their bright ruffled dresses.  Within this scene we also get glimpses of all the other strange creatures of the underworld.  It’s like dancing into a party at a circus where you’ll surely get laid.

I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys musicals, color, love stories or Bohemians.  To anyone who has gone all Van Gogh on absinthe, I’m honestly curious if this film compares to the experience?  Or is it better during said experience?  I honestly enjoyed the whole trippy feel of the film.

“Suddenly an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof. He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun.”

***A Beautiful Mind is only beautiful, Moulin Rouge! is beauty and so much more.  Fellowship is just working towards its final destination, so Moulin Rouge! is my pick for 2001.***