The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

The Artist is built on a premise of great ingenuity and daring for a modern film: it's black and white, silent, and shot using 1920s technology, with all the concomitant limitations. It pays off tellingly, and well deserved its Best Film Oscar: scene after scene is saturated with pathos, humour and invention, the lack of dialogue proving no barrier to effective story-telling. The two principal leads, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, are magnetic and succeed in conveying feelings and intent by expression alone as the best of the silent-era actors would have had to do. The story, of Dujardin's cinematic star being eclipsed by the arrival of the talkies and Bejo's simultaneous rise to fame, is uncomplicated by necessity but told with such zest and panache that no more elaboration is required or desired. It is a joy to watch.

8/10