Year: 2011
Written and directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle, Beth Grant, Ed Lauter, Uggie.
Running time: 95 min.
It is interesting to watch a movie that was big in awards season a long time after the season drew to a close. The dust has settled, the naysayers are silenced as they wait for the next awards season biggie to pick on, the fan and the buzz fades away. As I write this review, it has been just under three months since The Artist won Best Picture at the Oscars. I would have loved to have seen this in the theatre but the fact that no-one knows where NZ is I was deprived of this chance. Which is a great shame. This year we have films like The Avengers and The Hunger Games being labelled as 'event' films, which brings everyone together at the multiplex and break records and the like. The Artist, a silent, black-and-white film deserved to be an 'event' film, too. Oscar or no Oscar, The Artist is a special film that brings a thing of the past to the present effortlessly. There's nothing gimmicky about it: the film is a heartfelt tribute to an era which I adore. And if I'm being completely honest with you, The Artist is the best chance I have of introducing that era to the people I know.
