Introduction to Hugo in Dream.

/kloc-Hugo, a 0/2-year-old boy, has been living a secret life in the dark and narrow passage behind the twenty-seven clocks in Paris Railway Station. Orphan, clock watcher, thief-Hugo thought he would eventually lead a miserable life in this triple identity, and he would never even leave this station again ... unless he could fix the robot that can write!

Hugo's father was a watchmaker. He found a broken but delicate robot in the museum where he worked. While repairing the robot, his father wrote down the repair steps in his notebook and gave it to Hugo as a birthday present. Later, his father died mysteriously in a fire in the museum. Hugo insisted on repairing the robot that can write, and wanted to know the message his father wanted to leave himself through the words written by the robot.

In order to repair the robot, Hugo often stole the old man's toys from the toy store in order to disassemble more parts suitable for the robot, but he was caught by the old man. When the old man found the notebook, he was surprised and confiscated it. After many twists and turns, with the help of Isabel, a girl adopted by the old man, Hugo finally got his notebook back and repaired the robot. However, the robot did not write down any words left by his father as they imagined. When they were disappointed, they suddenly found that the robot showed them more bizarre and complicated information. What did the robot finally write? Why are there so many coincidences in this? Don't think the story ends here. In fact, it is the beginning of another story, which leads to more complicated and amazing secrets. Hugo's fate has also changed dramatically. Magic, movies, dreams ... constitute this complex and magical suspense story.

The strangeness of this book is even more memorable. It combines the dual characteristics of picture books and novels, with more than 300 pages of continuous illustrations, creates the tension effect of drama with the promotion of focal plane, reproduces movie clips with the unique page turning of the book, puts readers in narrative with its unique image and text splicing, and makes the whole book look like an animated movie. The author uses the narrative technique of separating literature from painting to make them compete with each other and echo each other. The ingenious design makes the silent film wander, and the image has the vividness and compactness of the story like a movie when turning pages. The author uses a black frame similar to the negative to enclose the text page and the picture page, just like the caption card of a silent movie. The black-and-white picture across the page is a pencil sketch, and the warm charcoal sketch is rich in layers, which appropriately creates a light and shadow effect and outlines the delicate dynamics and subtle inner changes of the characters. The combination of words and pictures is like a movie in the silent film era. At the beginning of the story, the author deliberately brought the reader into the cinema. Readers see the image on the screen from far and near, from small to large, and then focus on the protagonist Hugo. This method of simulating the film and the content of the novel set off each other.

What's more peculiar is that this wonderful book, which makes movies and picture books meet, is intricately interspersed with the real life stories and movie stills of giorgio melis, a pioneer of expressionist movies. Before working in film, Georges Méliès worked in a shoe factory run by his parents. Later, he sold his shares in the factory to his brother, bought a magic theater and became a magician. He personally made the mechanical device for magic and the camera for shooting. These facts are consistent with Mei's self-described life in the second half of the novel, and magic and mechanical devices have also become important themes in the novel. Performing arts and magic are integrated into the film era, presenting surprises in the narrative of suspense reasoning.

Let's quietly open this magical book.

The light turns from dark to black.

The screen is on.