Sometimes I think people are so desperate to find something meaningful and artistic, they construct something to fill a void which they don’t want to accept exists.

At the end of the day to me it felt a bit like a desperate attempt to piece together fragments which didn’t quite fit.
The storytellers knew they had something to work with. Some good ideas, some creative ways to express them, but couldn’t quite find the right vehicle that encapsulated everything in a way that had integrity from every perspective.

It was as though the story tellers refused to accept responsibility for anything other than expressing a few raw concepts shrouded in ambiguity, deliberately so because they simply lacked the skill to construct the supporting framework with attention to detail so that all the pieces fit together.

Like an unfinished painting, with the background entirely missing because the artist had not the skill to complete that many layers of complexity.
Just grasped at a few key concepts and hoped the audience would simply overlook all that was missing.

It has been very interesting to read the many interpretations expressed here.
Some I think are what the storytellers intended, while others go beyond I think what the storytellers intended, but upon reflection, wish they had.

It was not a great movie, there was definitely some very ordinary acting and the pace of the film was un-necessarily slow at times, and I don’t believe it hung together at all well with sufficient integrity to be called a good movie.

Having said that, I have to say that I am glad I watched the movie.

If nothing else, it has certainly evoked plenty of thought which is an achievement in itself.

In the end I kind of walked away thinking “I don’t get it” ….
Not because the concepts were beyond my comprehension or because I lacked the depth of perception to appreciate it.
But from this man’s point of view it was more like ….
I sort of know what you are going for ….
But you didn’t get there.

Nice try though.

Well, I assumed that Clara knew that ‘Sara’ had been burned because presumably they have to clear up whatever mess the men leave, so they probably go in the room after the men have left and wash/inspect the girls.. change the sheets etc.
(Because although the girls aren’t allowed to be penetrated the guys obviously probably do masturbate sometimes).
And the way Clara treats Sara is as goods, and a manager inspects the goods to make sure they’re all in order afterwards.

I thought Lucy burned the money to show us that she was acting out of self destruction rather than just simple monetary gain. But it could also be about control.

The berries, red berries, are symbolic of losing virginity. Although in this case it is a symbolic virginity.. and the next shot of her shows her looking more aware, more savvy, she knew what was going on and what to expect in the house. I also agree that they would have sullied the car and made a mess in the ritual and sterile perfect world of her controllers/employers.

I thought that she put her knickers on when she got out of bed to show that on some level, even though deeply sedated, she had been aware or affected by what had gone on. Perhaps on an energetic level, she had felt violated and in need of the symbolic or flimsy protection that pants gave her, this idea was echoed by her watching the woman on the bus sleep. This made her curious about what she was actually allowing to happen to her, and also probably why she bought the camera.

The guy at the funeral I took to clearly be her ex. Her proposal was just to shake him up a bit, she coolly observed his anger at her machinations, her discourteousness. Again- an element of self destruction and submerged anger. Her friendship with the birdman also shows her ease with depressiveness and self destruction rather than with the normal kids around her at college.

I’m glad I read this review as I hadn’t picked up on the importance to her of the intimacy of death and therefore the reason for her grave distress at the close. I also think the film is clever at expressing the sexual violation without any actual sex.

But, for all that, I still was merely left a bit depressed at the end, and not particularly overwhelmed. Interesting for an hour or two, intrigued enough to check out reviews afterwards, but not massively impressed. And I wouldn’t give this film to a couple of friends of mine because I think they’d probably get off on it for all the wrong reasons.. but it is amazing just how angry people are about this film. I’m not sure it warrants that, it wasn’t that good, or bad.

And…. (SPOILER COMING UP!)

Did anyone notice that at the very end, where we see the footage of Lucy in bed with the dying man, that the camera angle was high up, as if near the ceiling? Meaning that the footage wasn’t from the camera Lucy positioned on the vase? Perhaps suggesting that all of the meetings were being watched anyway? This would also explain a small change in detail that happened when the third man came to ‘spend time with’ Lucy. On previous occasions the lady who owned the house told the clients that they must not penetrate the girl. But on the third occasion, after Lucy had been burnt behind her ear by the second man’s cigarette, the owner instructed the third man not to penetrate OR MARK the girl, indicating that she somehow knew what had happened. Just a theory – would love to know whether anyone agrees or not!

I totally agree with your Oscar observations. I have no idea which picture will win. With a field of nine, anything could happen. The main thing is that 2011 was a wonderful year for movies.

@Tom Norris – Thank you as always for the thoughtful and informative comments that you leave on my reviews. I did read about Kim Novak’s response to the film using music from Vertigo and I thought what she said was unfortunate. I really didn’t mind the use of the Vertigo music because it was used in a different way in The Artist, it was effective (it’s such a great piece of music) and I enjoyed recognising it in a film that in general was filled with direct and indirect references to classic films and film styles from previous eras. As for the coat scene, it did feel Chaplinesque to me due to the sweet and almost goofy nature of the moment, but I’m not sure if it was referencing a specific film. It may have, but not one that I can immediately recall.

@CMrok93 – I’m determined not to pay too much attention to the Oscars this year and I haven’t even bothered seeing all the nominated films. However, I think The Artist would be a decent choice for Best Picture, but of the films I have seen The Tree of Life and Hugo are the ones that I think most deserve to win.

I recently viewed some of Buster Keaton’s silent films: Our Hospitality (1923), and Sherlock Jr. (1924). The latter was a milestone film for its effects. Keaton’s life had some sad, tragic turns. A while ago, on TV, I saw Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919) a beautifully done silent with Lillian Gish.

On reflection, I’ve had a few reservations about The Artist. For one, I thought the Valentin character’s decline was drawn out. By shortening that, the film, overall, would have had a better pace.

The films climax used an extended passage from Bernard Hermann’s score for Vertigo. I found it distracting, probably because that’s one of my favorite and possibly most studied films. The music and the original sequence it accompanies rank among the most memorable for me, and I imagine others too. Kim Novak was so annoyed by the score’s use here that she took out an ad in a trade paper calling it “rape.”

I wouldn’t go as far as Novak, yet Hazanavicius might have served his film and the history of movies better by finding a similarly moving score from an early silent film, possibly one whose prints have been lost, yet whose music survives.

That said, I walked out of the theater with a real feeling of delight. The film is an interpretation of the silent era, and as a whole, it works very well.

If anyone has any doubts about your perceptive remarks regarding the representation of ideology in the film, I suggest they study the song sung by Scar, ‘Be Prepared’, where he declares his intentions to right his perceived injustice by murdering his brother. I was amazed by the Leni Riefenstahl visual cues the film used to compare Scar’s ambition and methods to Fascism (capital ‘F’). Thinking about it afterwards, I feel this overt and undeniable linking of Scar with Hitler/Mussolini must be for a moral purpose. Certainly it is not meant for the younger members of the audience who would not get such a connection but rather it is a sophisticated call on another trope, that of the evil/good binary. One character is born evil, to harbour powerful and threatening ambition, achieved in the most callous way and the other is good, fated to only see the good in others and be too trusting and good-hearted to suspect the depth of depravity that threatens him (and all he rules benignly). Thus, the death of Mustafa is, as you say, powerful and also meaningful in betraying the divide between good and evil that is shown to exist in the jungle, and by dint of the reference, to our real world as well.

This is the first film I’ve seen in the new 3D technology, and as you observe, it works stunningly well. It enhanced the story line and felt fully integrated into the film. The surround sound seems to work better, since the 3D image projects into the audience, and the side channels have more of a function. In 2D, I’ve always thought that surround was kind of a distraction, since, at times, there’s a weak (or no) correlation between the side channels and the image on the screen.

I recall seeing a 70mm print of the restored Vertigo in a surround auditorium. The restoration sound design had birds twittering from the side channels during a park scene. But it gave more the impression that sparrows were loose in the theater. (That minor quirk aside, I thought the Harris/Katz restoration was a remarkable achievement, historic in its own right.)

You see the world through Hugo’s eyes. I thought the two juvenile leads, Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz, anchored the film and gave it a sparkling quality. The adults were secondary to them and observed by them.

Hugo had a weak run here (U.S.), barely exceeding a third of its production cost. I hope it does better globally.