h-b-bos

This is a very good movie, but it could be better. The feel of the whole story very much reminded me of the Coen Brothers movie 'a serious man'. It has the same sense of general awkwardness in its characters. The story is very well told. It has a chapter structure and the parts of father and son have kind of symmetry to it, resulting in a feeling of bittersweet irony. If you like irony in all its layers and subtleties, then this is definitely something to watch. The one thing that could make this movie better in my opinion, is the climax that the whole movie is building up to, but which is left to your imagination. In my taste a little too much so, but decide for yourself!

Meant to be visually stunning, it fell a little short to my expectations. The visual effects may fool the children, but at some point they will get annoying. When Hugo is within the walls of the train station you will notice that his movements do not fit the constraints of the architecture as you saw it in the interior of the station. The train station and the space between the walls are obviously different worlds. Another flaw is that there are several shots which would have the camera position as much as three times as high as the Eiffel tower. There is no such tall building in the vicinity of the Eiffel tower in my recollection of Paris, especially not in the time in which the movie is set. I also noticed I got a little bored with the 'steampunk' clockworks and machinery that you see in this movie, the golden compass and likes.

I enjoyed the wild experiments of the beginning of film making, in which the main character George Melies plays a big role. You feel the excitement of new inventions and wonders of technology. But I fear that this movie suffers too much from lack of focus; children will miss the different layers and will probably be bored and the storytelling will leave adults something to wish for.