Feb 25 2011
‘The Illusionist’ Movie Review
Running time: 80 min Rating: Rated PG for thematic elements and smoking.Directed by: Sylvain Chomet Written by: Jacques Tati (original screenplay), Sylvain Chomet (adaptation) Starring: Jean-Claude Donda, Eilidh Rankin, Duncan MacNeil
PCN Rating: 
The film director is very much like the stage magician in the way he seeks to conjure ephemeral truth out of delicately constructed deceptions. The best of both are those who can transcend the craft and make the illusion so seamless and transporting that it enriches and expands the context it exists in. Famed French cinema artist Jacques Tati, himself not just a director but also mime and comedian, was one of our very best big-screen illusionists. As it turns out, so is Sylvan Chomet, the brilliant animator of 2004’s Belleville Rendezvous and now The Illusionist, an achingly lovely and emotionally deep rendition of one of Tati’s own unproduced screenplays.
Tati, a man of dry and subtle humors, often explored the human condition through comedy that was less laugh-out loud funny than it was structurally mirthful. There’s a specific and witty joy that runs through films like Playtime and Mr. Hulots Holiday and although Chomet possesses a different, but no less effective, sensibility he captures Tati’s style in both the rich, detailed animation and in the carefully tailored pantomime of the characters, which requires little to no discernable dialogue in order to grasp its intent or meaning.
Chomet has interpreted Tati’s screenplay as a regretful testament to his daughter (although there’s conflict over exactly which abandoned child the story is intended for, as Tati left behind two fitting the bill). The story itself isn’t directly bittersweet or painfully wistful, but exists in its own wrapped-up little world that melds simple, transcendent joy and the wonders of one’s ability with the frustrating realities of the world and the ebbing flow of life. This sounds heavy but when it’s placed in the hands of Chomet and his animators it becomes light and elegantly beautiful, demonstrating the same divine symmetry that exists in the drifting snowfall of feathers that blanket the characters in one sublime scene.
The illusionist of the film’s title is a Scottish stage magician, Tatischeff, who reminds of Tati’s classic Mr. Hulot, roaming about Edinburgh and pitching his brand of old-school magic in the climate of the early 60’s. Now, his once palatable wears are second-rate and antiquated in the face of British rock and roll and strangely androgynous boy bands. Designed like a picture book of individual vignettes and episodes, The Illusionist follows Tatischeff through the moonlight era of his career and life, and focuses finally upon the relationship he has with a young, impressionable maid ( likely a stand-in for Tati’s daughter).
There’s nothing lascivious about this pairing but the style in which the young woman is animated is rather ambiguous as to her actual age, so the father/daughter parable isn’t immediately grasped either. Through patient devotion to their interaction, Chomet makes the bond and the limits of it clear. The young woman believes in the magician’s magic and yearns to see more of it, caught up in the fantasy and shelter he provides and for Tatischeff, one girl’s wide-eyed wonder is worth all of the blue-collar jobs he’s taking to make these miracles reality. Around them are the zany inhabitants of the Edinburgh hotel that include a variety of stage performers fallen on hard times, one of them a suicidal clown.
Animation is a medium that affords filmmakers greater freedom and clarity when realizing stories that might live larger than the constraints of live action might allow. It’s completely plausible that The Illusionist might have existed as easily in live action because it has no living toys, fire-breathing dragons or warrior owls. Just as likely however, is the fact it wouldn’t have had the same magic it gains here by virtue of Chomet’s lush and vibrant illustrated world.
Although Illusionist doesn’t have the madcap surrealism and grotesque exaggeration of the farcical and imaginative Triplets of Belleville, it still utilizes the medium to create a dreamer’s microcosm of emotional energy. Watching Tatischeff and his mischievous rabbit onstage, or lingering as the illusionist and his young charge wander over picturesque Scottish hills, it’s easy to get caught up in Chomet’s vision.
Once we are transported, this world doesn’t let us easily go. Every bedroom, crowded bar or night street is a multi-layered feast for the senses, bursting to the seams with awkward messy life. There’s something more real in the movements and overemphasized mannerisms of these characters than in the choppy stylized jitters of live actors in a big budget action movie. Tatischeff and his little maid live and breath and love and lose themselves over the course of The Illusionist. It’s surprisingly poignant and engrossing to watch this transpire, and Chomet isn’t just a gallant and generous showman, he’s also a wise artist who knows when to pull back the curtains and tease the audience’s internal gears.
Underneath this tender story is something universal about the ways in which we use the veneer of fantasy to express hard or precious truths to one another. In the lie, we might be fully laid bare for the first time and in the withdrawing of that illusion—which will come—will we be satisfied with what remains? In The Illusionist, we are invited into a world that sings onscreen. It isn’t a place one often gets to visit, even at the cinema. When the final frames play, our hearts too are aching, knowing that the mirage will soon vanish and the smoke of the fantastic soon to follow.
Feb 25, 2011 @ 13:53:50
Still haven’t seen this yet. Hope it’s as good as it’s animation looks beautiful.