Hugo, the latest film by Martin Scorsese and based on the 2008 Caldecott Medal winning children’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, stuns visually as well as emotionally. The story follows the life of orphaned Hugo Cabret, son of a watchmaker, who has fallen through the cracks in post World War I Paris. He lives in the walls of a train terminal, where he winds the clocks and observes the lives and loves of the people who come and go. He keeps the memory of his father, killed in a fire, close as he works in every spare moment on repairing an automaton discovered by the pair in a museum. Hugo, awash in loneliness and loss, focuses all his efforts on this shabby but creepily elegant clockwork doll, until he brushes destiny with the owner of the station’s toy shop Georges Méliès and his goddaughter Isabella.

 

Hugo, played masterfully by Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), is equal parts pitiable waif and admirably spunky survivor. If Butterfield is not nominated for an academy award this season, there is no justice – the entire film’s emotional kaleidoscope rests firmly on this young actor’s shoulders, and he twists and shines through every turn. Each of the characters found in Hugo remind the audience, to one degree or another, we are all broken, and in the end, all we have is one another. Our struggle each and every day is to overcome our past and not give in to sorrow.

 

Martin Scorsese delivers this message in stunning beauty, which, in direct contrast to the white on black storyboard-like illustrations from Brian Selznick’s book, springs from a perfectly balanced color palette of brass and steam, sunlight and snow. The constant motion of the cogs and pendulums of Hugo’s world mesh with unstoppable emotions of the boy himself. Ben Kingsley, understated as Méliès, the former filmmaker who has nearly ground to a halt from bitterness and depression from having his works nearly forgotten, is as wonderful as ever.

 

In a direct departure from most of Scorsese’s recent films, nary an F-bomb is dropped – thank heavens. I’d gotten so tired of his vitriolic back and forth in scattershot profanity. In fact, some of Hugo’s most adorable scenes mimic the most charming pantomimes of the silent film era. Truly, no dialogue necessary. The messages come across clearly. The visual sedative of the whirling steam and snow, the gently rotating gears and ticking clocks make for a remarkably soothing beautiful experience that I will watch again and again. Is it Steampunk? Arguably, but without the overtones of, “Look at me! I’m Steampunk: the movie!”

 

Scorsese, himself a strong supporter of preserving cinematic heritage, pays homage to the early film masters through his love letter to the past. The characters, art direction and pacing are superb, and whether you are orphan or artist, the themes of this gentle film will hit emotionally close to home if you have any heart at all; we are all needed parts in this great machine.

 

Reviewer Emilie P. Bush is the author of two Steampunk novels: Chenda and the Airship Brofman (a 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Semi-finalist) and The Gospel According to Verdu, both available at your favorite on-line book retailer, on Kindle, and in all other digital formats from Smashwords.com(worldwide distribution). 

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