Review of the film "The Keeper of Time";
Paris of the 1930s. After the death of his watchmaker father, orphaned teenager Hugo secretly lives at the train station and, replacing his eternally drunk uncle, repairs and adjusts the chimes. All that remained of the boy's former happy life was a mechanical robot automaton, which his father found in the museum's storeroom and did not have time to repair. To complete his work on the automaton, Hugo steals the gears from Monsieur Georges, a train station toy dealer. This crime does not go unpunished, and the boy loses his father's notebook, but he makes a friend, a pupil of Monsieur Georges named Isabelle.
Trailers, official synopses, photos from press releases - all the promotional materials of The Timekeeper are trying to convince viewers that Martin Scorsese, the legendary master of realistic and profound dramas, suddenly changed the genre and shot a family adventure or a fairy tale. Indeed, the first hour of The Guardian is spent anticipating a miracle. With bated breath, small and large viewers are waiting for Hugo to fix the automaton and it will draw a map of treasure island, reveal the mystery of the Paris catacombs or show the way to some other delightful adventure for two (or three, or four) main characters.
But when the automaton does start working, it doesn't draw a map, but a fig. It turns out that Scorsese and his investors deceived the public and spent 170 million dollars not on a family adventure, but on a declaration of love for the founder of film fiction, Georges Méliès. Who, indeed, after the ruin of his film studio, sold toys at the train station and raised his orphaned granddaughter.
As soon as Hugo finds out who Monsieur Georges was in his "past life", the action of the film ends by and large. Because I can't call "action" a lengthy flashback about Melies' work that has nothing to do with Hugo and Isabelle. With the same success, the authors of Chapaev could forget about the title character in the middle of the tape, transfer the events to pre-revolutionary Europe and tell how Lenin lived in exile. And it would be more logical than the somersault in the "Guardian" plot. Because at least Lenin and Chapaev were closely connected. Hugo and Monsieur Georges just work at the same train station. And their connection in the picture is a brazen attempt to sneak a biopic under the guise of a blockbuster.
However, we must give Scorsese his due. Both parts of the film are shot gracefully and convincingly, with lots of quotes from silent films. For a retrokinomaniac, "The Guardian" is a unique gift, combining an old-fashioned atmosphere with modern 3D technologies. But fraud is fraud. If you promise a family adventure, then be kind enough to provide it. And if you want to remind me of Melies, then take an honest, full-fledged biopic and do not involve any orphans and robots in the "adult" story about the rise and fall of a brilliant creator. Yes, no one will give 170 million for such a movie. But do we really love Scorsese movies for their special effects? https://ambo.market/
Trailers, official synopses, photos from press releases - all the promotional materials of The Timekeeper are trying to convince viewers that Martin Scorsese, the legendary master of realistic and profound dramas, suddenly changed the genre and shot a family adventure or a fairy tale. Indeed, the first hour of The Guardian is spent anticipating a miracle. With bated breath, small and large viewers are waiting for Hugo to fix the automaton and it will draw a map of treasure island, reveal the mystery of the Paris catacombs or show the way to some other delightful adventure for two (or three, or four) main characters.
But when the automaton does start working, it doesn't draw a map, but a fig. It turns out that Scorsese and his investors deceived the public and spent 170 million dollars not on a family adventure, but on a declaration of love for the founder of film fiction, Georges Méliès. Who, indeed, after the ruin of his film studio, sold toys at the train station and raised his orphaned granddaughter.
As soon as Hugo finds out who Monsieur Georges was in his "past life", the action of the film ends by and large. Because I can't call "action" a lengthy flashback about Melies' work that has nothing to do with Hugo and Isabelle. With the same success, the authors of Chapaev could forget about the title character in the middle of the tape, transfer the events to pre-revolutionary Europe and tell how Lenin lived in exile. And it would be more logical than the somersault in the "Guardian" plot. Because at least Lenin and Chapaev were closely connected. Hugo and Monsieur Georges just work at the same train station. And their connection in the picture is a brazen attempt to sneak a biopic under the guise of a blockbuster.
However, we must give Scorsese his due. Both parts of the film are shot gracefully and convincingly, with lots of quotes from silent films. For a retrokinomaniac, "The Guardian" is a unique gift, combining an old-fashioned atmosphere with modern 3D technologies. But fraud is fraud. If you promise a family adventure, then be kind enough to provide it. And if you want to remind me of Melies, then take an honest, full-fledged biopic and do not involve any orphans and robots in the "adult" story about the rise and fall of a brilliant creator. Yes, no one will give 170 million for such a movie. But do we really love Scorsese movies for their special effects? https://ambo.market/