LFF 2011 Diary, Day 7 - THE ARTIST

LFF 2011 Diary, Day 7: The Artist (Rating: ****) A rapturously joyful event, The Artist is as much flat-out fun as your going to get at the cinema in the neat future. As the feet start tapping and the fingers get clicking, the smiles just keep on getting bigger in Michel Hazanavicius wonderful love letter to the silent era of Hollywood cinema.

Despite all of the ecstatic praise that The Artist will undoubtedly receive thanks to its celebration of the iconic era of silent pictures, the central love story and enchanting style with which the film is made is just as worthy of merit than all of the nostalgic historicism. A film that is essentially about cinema itself, The Artist never feels like a referential leaden piece that is only accessible to those who are film buffs and silent movie fanatics. With laughs, tears and musicality, The Artist is a film for everyone.

When successful film star George Valentin finds his career in sudden decline due to the advent of the sound and ‘talking’ pictures in 1927, rising actress Peppy Miller - given a start in the movies by Valentin - sees her career goes from strength to strength as a result. Too proud to accept the new dawn of the ‘talkies’, George’s previously lavish life falls into disrepute after his wife leaves him and he eventually becomes bankrupt. As Peppy, Berenice Bejo has all of the classic looks of a traditional Hollywood star. A perfect accompaniment to the man and his dog act of Valentin. Other star names such as John Goodman and particularly Penelope Ann Miller - who always had the look of a 1930s actress - are well suited to silent roles.

As George, Jean Dujardin possese all the necessary pizzazz and charm to convince as an authentic silent performer, with necessry touches of arrogance and pompousness And in his authenticity as Valentin, are echoes of silent stars of the past such as Jameson Thomas, star in E. A. Dupont’s classic Piccadilly as Valentine Wilmot. Thomas, like George, also found himself tragically out of leading roles as a consequence of the introduction of sound and a dodgy foreign accent ill suited to the medium - something The Artist jokingly references to at the very end.

It is amazing how quickly you become absorbed by the majesty of this film, never at all craving the presence of dialogue. And in those sudden jolts in which sound is used the effect is ever more profound and startling. Though slightly plodding near the end, the overwhelming warmth of the picture is infectious to the point of standing and applauding upon the the film’s conclusion. JJ