Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Artist: Art, pure and simple

Take a hackneyed plot: Successful actor, struggling actress (female actor?); the rise of one spells the downfall of the other. If SLB were to do this film, he'd up the glamour quotient extravagantly, to dazzle the viewer with lavish sets, colourful costumes and musical set-pieces.What someone who thought a little differently did was to capture a sepia-tinted era; to bring back that experience when the moving picture was taking its first steps into public consciousness.

In a time of spectacular 3D visual effects and multiplexes falling over each other to provide mind-blowing sound, The Artist came as a melodious, peaceful song. The black-and-white was visual relief and the flowing music a perfect complement to the story. What lifted the film was superlative work by the actors, because when there are only visuals and no dialogue to support it, the actor's face and body language are the canvas on which the director can paint each scene. In fact, without the support of dialogues, the visual medium is explored to the fullest, where everything you see on screen has a role to play in the story.


Perhaps the success of the film was proved by the two annoying gentlemen sitting next to us in the cinema hall. They crunched and slurped noisily with wisecracks thrown in, as the movie began and they realized it was a silent film. But as the film progressed, very little was heard out of them, apart from laughter at the apt moments.

The Artist was an experience like no other; it showed once again why cinema is a visual medium, and how minimally stories can be told.


 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Good to have you back online :)