The Illusionist Review

   Remember that moment as a kid when you saw that first magic trick, before all the cynicism trying to prove the magician’s trick wasn’t real? It was incredible! For that brief moment in time, magic was real. The romanticism of the world was really something.  The world was such a cool place, something that was so awesome.  This is how the girl, Alice, feels in Sylvain Chomet’s animated film, The Illusionist.

   The film is about a magician who travels the British Isles, doing shows for any kind of money he can find.  This job so to speak, lands him in Scotland where he meets a young girl, Alice. She is captivated my his magic, and cannot believe what he can do.  One day she comes in, and he takes something she gives him, and whoof, something new has appeared.  Eventually, he does this with her shoes, getting her a brand new pair.  Taken by this magician, she wants to leave with him to travel the world and see more magic.  They travel together and eventually land in Edinborough Scotland.  As they live together, the more the magician works to keep her happy by getting her new clothes, and shoes.  He even tries to be a car mechanic for a night to help pay for things.  He jumps from job to job as we see Alice grow as a girl to a young woman.  As she moves forward, the magician struggles to keep things as he eventually loses his one good job.  She falls in love, and just as she is about to come home in the end to tell him, he has gone and left a note saying “Magicians are not real.” She looks at the note, sad that this man who gave her so much, who truly created magic, has now gone.  The magician travels away now, but keeps a picture of her to remember their time together.

   I really didn’t have much to go on with this movie, except for a trailer I saw a few years ago.  It’s one of those movies where certain things are truly relatable to my life.  As an artist, whether it be in tv or film, the struggles of making it are enormous.  Most people do what happens in this movie: go from place to place just to keep bread on the table.  But if that’s what you know, you do it not just for money, but because you love it.  I think the Illusionist lost that along the way, as so many artists do.  We see in the film as well a man who loved being a clown, but couldn’t.  A man who loved being a ventriloquist, but couldn’t because times were changing. Father time was pushing them away.  These men were driven to suicide, homelessness and drunkedness.  When what you love says time is passing you by, what can you do?

   The animation is something I can say I truly miss in movies today.  The beauty of every hand crafted image is something I truly treasured in this film.  The movement, the beautiful landscapes, just so beautiful. In a sense, animation is like this character.  Time is passing it by, and there is nothing he, or we, can do about it.

   Even though I couldn’t understand the movie, being in French for the most part, the animation and character actions guided me through the story. 

   The story itself may seem slow and too bogged down for most, but patience is a virtue and the message once you see it, is something truly special(which I will talk about later).

   The story has no real dialogue, something which many people won’t like, but it’s worth it.  I was bothered a little by it at first, but with the tone of the film it worked very well. 

   The tone was very simple, nothing too close, almost no closeups to any actor in the entire film.  It’s almost as if the director didn’t want to bring us in too close, because he didn't want to spoil the magic.

   The music is what really stands out to me.  As in The Artist last year, the music is truly what moves this story forward.  We see and feel the kidlike imagination thinking about his tricks and how awesome they are.  It also works on the serious level, showing frustrations of the illusionist, moving from town to town, and the pace and life of the cities.

   The message in this film to me is that the magic in life, the imagination, the beauty we see as kids doesn't last. As we grow older we lose that sense of mental freedom, to think that anything is possible.  Logic crowds every judgement nowadays.  Oh how I wish I was a kid again!

   Then again, maybe the magic moves in different ways, the little things in life we don't see.  The girl loved the tricks, but she grew up with little things: when she got the heels, when she got the coat.  Her confidence grew, her curiosity did as well, and she became the beautiful young woman she never could have without him.

   I think magic is real, and magicians are real.  They may not be who you think they are, the men with the tricks, but they are real.  They are out there, and they may be helping you right now.  As all good magicians say, we never reveal our secrets.