Hugo

At first glance it seems a real departure for Martin Scorsese to adapt an award-winning children’s book in 3-D, a long way from Taxi Driver or Goodfellas.  But from the very first shot, Hugo (2011, MC-83, NFX) establishes itself in the intimate line of the master’s work – it’s Scorsese all over.  We plummet from an aerial view of Paris around 1930 into the Montparnasse train station, zip along the crowded platform between trains, and then sweep up to a large clock and through it, to an extreme close-up of the eyes of a boy looking out.  Then we race with him through the walls and towers of the old building, as he goes about his job of winding all the clocks, spies on the denizens of the station, steals food and other necessaries, and avoids the clutches of the station inspector.  It’s all enormously exhilarating, especially in 3-D.  Then we settle into the story, which even as an adaptation has all the hallmarks of Scorsese’s personal history and obsessions – the young boy on the inside looking out, the love for film history and film preservation, the mechanical magic of movies.  The boy is an orphan whose one relic of his clockmaker father is an automaton found in a museum attic, and his quest is restoring it to working order in order to receive a message from his dead father.  To do so, he steals parts from a toy store in the station, run by a grumpy old man, who turns out to be none other than film pioneer Georges Méliès.  The plot neatly dovetails with his genuine biography, while remaining an effective children’s adventure story.  Asa Butterfield is good as Hugo, but I was less thrilled by Ben Kingsley as Méliès, and by his granddaughter who teams up with Hugo, somehow the 3-D just accentuated the obviousness of their performances.  Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector and Helen McGrory as Mrs. Méliès lead a solid supporting cast.  But the film as a whole is a kinetic wonder, which retains a heart of true feeling.