Hello everyone!! Welcome to week four of our Paris film journey! Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I wanted fun and whimsy and beauty this spring, and although an actual trip to Paris in the spring would be better, a film journey will have to do. We are having great fun, and hope you will journey along with us!

This week, we watched Hugo!

This one was my pick, and I picked it for Billy. This is one of his favorite movies, and I have to admit, I really like it too, but not as much as he does. He loves all the little tinkering, the clockworks, the workings of machinery, as well as how masterfully this movie is shot and acted.

The summary from Rotten Tomatoes: “Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo’s job is to oil and maintain the station’s clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father (Jude Law). Accompanied by the goddaughter (Chloë Grace Moretz) of an embittered toy merchant (Ben Kingsley), Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.”

From his home in the walls of the train station, Hugo can see life happening all around him. The woman with the little cute dachshund, who is fiercely protective of her mistress, and won’t let a certain interested gentleman speak with her, the toy seller with his wind up toys, the sweet natured florist, the people rushing rushing rushing for their trains, and the slightly villainous presence of the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his Doberman, Maximillian. Hugo winds the clocks to keep the Station Inspector at bay, pretending he is his Uncle Claude, who took him in after his father died. Uncle Claude used to keep the clocks running but he disappeared one day to not return. Hugo does not want the Station Inspector to find him, because he will send him to the orphanage, and Hugo does not want to leave – he has his automaton to work on and protect.

The automaton was the last thing his dad had brought home from his job at the museum. The two were looking forward to bringing it back to life before his dad suddenly dies in a fire at the museum, and Hugo was whisked away to the walls of the train station. Hugo makes it his mission to continue the dream that he and his dad had.

Then one day, he meets Isabelle, played by Chloë Grace Moretz. They strike up a friendship, showing each other the wonders of their worlds. Isabelle introduces Hugo to the most delightful looking bookstore, and its kindhearted bookseller, played by Christopher Lee, and Hugo introduces her to movies, and eventually, to his home in the walls and his automaton.

Let’s stop and take a peek at this bookshop, because it is a place I would find magical as well.

Isabelle and Hugo’s stories begin to overlap and become intertwined, as they discover little things that just raise more questions, about the automaton and Hugo’s dad and Isabelle’s godfather, who is the train station toy merchant, Georges Méliès – who also has secrets.

Georges Méliès was a real person, and is at the heart of this movie. He was a filmmaker, and his story is rather interesting. Cat over at Cat’s Wire actually has a blog post about him and his history, if you want to pop over and read it! It will give a bit of background to this movie, and may fill in some blanks, because as I said, a large part of Hugo has to do with Méliès.

I thought this movie was beautifully shot, the cinematography was gorgeous, the story was heartfelt and sincere, and I loved how everything was interwoven and eventually, how it ended.

I thought the side characters and little mini-plots were well done as well. The Station Inspector has his own story, and where you want to dislike him, there is something about him that stops you. A vulnerability in his villain. Bit by bit we learn his story as well, and it brings his actions into perspective. I thought that Sacha Baron Cohen played this character so well, and while his actions seemed cruel, and some were, I don’t think that he necessarily is. I know that sounds super confusing. He and Hugo are very similar, in believing that everyone and everything has a place, an order. Hugo believes that like machines, there are no spare parts, therefore everyone must belong somewhere; and so does the Station Inspector. How this manifests in their actions though, differs and we watch the Station Inspector going from trapped and locked up, to becoming more.

Hugo says in this movie “Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken.”

Hugo is a fixer, a tinkerer. And in this movie, he demonstrates that he can fix more than just automatons and in doing so, finds his place and where he belongs.

This movie is magical. Ben Kingsley’s performance is amazing, as always, and in his end speech, in which he is addressing people involved in film, I feel like he means every single word.

If you haven’t seen this movie, give it a whirl. I think you might like it.

Did you watch? What do you think of this movie? Feel free to comment and link up with us!

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Next up is The Intouchables!