The Artist

Just as you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, be wary of judging a film by its trailer, as I did.

I had almost made up my mind that The Artist was not my kind of film. It seemed too happy, clappy for me, a period piece with women in silly flapper hats and dresses. Newspaper accolades and ten Oscar nominations did nothing to persuade me otherwise. In spite of the praise I agreed to see it.

I'm told that some people in Liverpool asked for their money back because they did not realise The Artist was a silent film. What did they think they were going to watch, an interview with Rembrandt? More fool them, for Michel Hazanavcius' film ranks as one of the best I have ever seen, up there with Les Enfants du Paradis and Pierre le Fou - all French films, notice. French movie-makers love American films with the passion that French politicians pretend to despise American politicians.

Such is this film's artistry, I thought it had been shot on location in Los Angeles. Only at the end did I realise it was French. Only today was I told that a good deal of it had been shot in Belgium. You could have fooled me twice round the block. Happily, the where and how of it don't matter a damn. This is a wondrous piece of uplifting movie-making.

If like me you are not aware of the track record of director Michel Hazanavcius', who nursed this project for ten years, or the track record of the leading man Jean Dujardin - a big star on French TV and film - The Artist will come at you like a miracle. You won't even mind the scene-stealing Jack Russell Terrier, Uggie - a nice take on films-with-cute-animals-in-them. Even Clint Eastwood tried that; remember Clyde the ape in Any Which Way But Loose?

Movies about movie-making are nothing new. Doubtless the point has already been made elsewhere about the similarities to Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds song and dance comedy about Hollywood in the days of silent movies and the trial and error transition to sound. I was even willing to believe that part of The Artist had been filmed on the studio backlot that features in Sunset Boulevard, the 1950 Billy Wilder take on Hollywood central to which is Gloria Swanson as the reclusive star from the silent movie era. The studio backlot scene is where the two would-be screen writers played by William Holden and Nancy Olsen walk and talk.

The Artist artfully employs the corny techniques of film-making in Hollywood circa 1927-1929. There is a driving scene towards the end, for example, in which obvious back projection is used to play up the melodrama, while at the same time your emotions are intensified by the music which quotes Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo, his 1958 film about obsessive love, manipulation and deception.

Referentially splicing together things seen and heard before in American movies is part of the wonder of this film, as is its humour, pathos and vitality. As is Jean Dujardin's expressive eyebrows, his flashing devil-may-care Douglas Fairbanks smiles (he plays Hollywood silent movie supestar George Valentin). He is the epitome of the Corinthian, manly ideal of the 1920s, even down to the pencil-thin moustache and slicked back hair. Add to that Berenice Bejo's vivacity as rising starlet Peppy Miller, the superb period motors, costumes, LA-style locations and the cleverly judged intermittent use of sound.

To paraphrase Greg Wallace on Master Chef, film-making doesn't get any better than this. Go and see for yourself.