An illusion itself as much as it is about a maker of illusions, Sylvain Chomet's animated take on a never-filmed screenplay by Jacques Tati overflows with rainy-day beauty and mystery. The lack of any true dialogue only adds to its cloak-like myth-making; words would just ruin the poetry. Chomet's film is also, of course, a beguilingly frustrating piece of work that can seem to hide and obfuscate more than is necessary. But at least the music is fantastic.
The illusionist himself is a stiff-limbed and slightly priggish-seeming magician first glimpsed working for desultory crowds in a Parisian theater. (The name on his poster, incidentally, is Tatischeff, Tati's original name before he shortened it.) With his back held straight and fine-fingered hands whisking through age-old routines of disappearing flowers and glasses that seemingly defy the laws of gravity - when they're not trying to wrangle a particularly recalcitrant rabbit - the illusionist is a grave-faced reminder of earlier times and sensibilities about to be swept away.
With little sense of hurry (the film's 80-odd minutes tick by easily but with no rush), Chomet tracks the illusionist across the Channel for a new round of gigs, each one less impressive than the one before it. At a London theater, he waits patiently backstage to perform after his opening act, a beautifully over-the-top caricature of 1950s rockabilly called Billy Boy and the Britoons who can't give enough encores to their screaming female fans. By the time the illusionist makes it onstage, there's only one old lady and a young boy, both highly unimpressed.
In the film's most evocative passage, the illusionist travels north into Scotland, taking trains, cars, and boats through a mystical landscape of soaring mountains and wide lakes, culminating at a crammed little loch-side village. There, in a place so remote that we witness the ballyhooed turning-on of their first light bulb, the illusionist plays in a packed pub to more rapturous attention than he received in any of the more proper venues that preceded. It's here as well that the illusionist picks up the companion who will stay with him for the remainder of the film. Alice is a wide-eyed waif of a chambermaid, who isn't just taken with his faux warlock trickery but also decides that he's the man to take her to the big city.
Tati's script settles into a small boarding house in Edinburgh, where the two sleep in separate rooms and Alice sponges ever so daintily off the illusionist (the film never makes it clear whether he is in love with or simply tolerant of her). He scrapes by in yet another dingy theater while in the boarding house the last vestiges of vaudeville - a ventriloquist on his last legs, a suicidal clown - run out their endgame. For her part, in stylish new outfits and a distinctly chic haircut, Alice blooms into just the sort of urbanite who looked askance at her when she first came to town, but seems to be blind to the illusionist himself.
Chomet surpasses the anarchic glee of his Triplets of Belleville here, echoing the classic era of mid-century Disney animation with all its quietly-rendered and painstakingly drawn detail. The watercolor tones and slightly-skewed perspectives can't hide the nearly architectural eye for each building and street and tree (this is particularly true for the Edinburgh passages, after which it almost seems like you could find your way around town without a map).
Of course, nothing truly happens. There is no dialogue and only the quietest murmur of conflict. Disappointment and small sly jokes are more the lay of the land, with Chomet evoking not just the classic era of vaudeville with the illusionist's silent gag routines but slipping in visual jokes where possible (even a chip-shop sign only briefly glimpsed contains a tweaked quote from a Monty Python routine).
The Illusionist may be best viewed in the end like a magic trick itself: initially impressive sleight-of-hand that can frustrate once it becomes apparent just how little there might be behind all the smoke and mirrors. But that doesn't mean that for at least a little while, one didn't leave the corporeal world completely behind, particularly once its ending takes wing with a sublime grandeur.
Aka L'illusionniste
The illusionist himself is a stiff-limbed and slightly priggish-seeming magician first glimpsed working for desultory crowds in a Parisian theater. (The name on his poster, incidentally, is Tatischeff, Tati's original name before he shortened it.) With his back held straight and fine-fingered hands whisking through age-old routines of disappearing flowers and glasses that seemingly defy the laws of gravity - when they're not trying to wrangle a particularly recalcitrant rabbit - the illusionist is a grave-faced reminder of earlier times and sensibilities about to be swept away.
With little sense of hurry (the film's 80-odd minutes tick by easily but with no rush), Chomet tracks the illusionist across the Channel for a new round of gigs, each one less impressive than the one before it. At a London theater, he waits patiently backstage to perform after his opening act, a beautifully over-the-top caricature of 1950s rockabilly called Billy Boy and the Britoons who can't give enough encores to their screaming female fans. By the time the illusionist makes it onstage, there's only one old lady and a young boy, both highly unimpressed.
In the film's most evocative passage, the illusionist travels north into Scotland, taking trains, cars, and boats through a mystical landscape of soaring mountains and wide lakes, culminating at a crammed little loch-side village. There, in a place so remote that we witness the ballyhooed turning-on of their first light bulb, the illusionist plays in a packed pub to more rapturous attention than he received in any of the more proper venues that preceded. It's here as well that the illusionist picks up the companion who will stay with him for the remainder of the film. Alice is a wide-eyed waif of a chambermaid, who isn't just taken with his faux warlock trickery but also decides that he's the man to take her to the big city.
Tati's script settles into a small boarding house in Edinburgh, where the two sleep in separate rooms and Alice sponges ever so daintily off the illusionist (the film never makes it clear whether he is in love with or simply tolerant of her). He scrapes by in yet another dingy theater while in the boarding house the last vestiges of vaudeville - a ventriloquist on his last legs, a suicidal clown - run out their endgame. For her part, in stylish new outfits and a distinctly chic haircut, Alice blooms into just the sort of urbanite who looked askance at her when she first came to town, but seems to be blind to the illusionist himself.
Chomet surpasses the anarchic glee of his Triplets of Belleville here, echoing the classic era of mid-century Disney animation with all its quietly-rendered and painstakingly drawn detail. The watercolor tones and slightly-skewed perspectives can't hide the nearly architectural eye for each building and street and tree (this is particularly true for the Edinburgh passages, after which it almost seems like you could find your way around town without a map).
Of course, nothing truly happens. There is no dialogue and only the quietest murmur of conflict. Disappointment and small sly jokes are more the lay of the land, with Chomet evoking not just the classic era of vaudeville with the illusionist's silent gag routines but slipping in visual jokes where possible (even a chip-shop sign only briefly glimpsed contains a tweaked quote from a Monty Python routine).
The Illusionist may be best viewed in the end like a magic trick itself: initially impressive sleight-of-hand that can frustrate once it becomes apparent just how little there might be behind all the smoke and mirrors. But that doesn't mean that for at least a little while, one didn't leave the corporeal world completely behind, particularly once its ending takes wing with a sublime grandeur.
Aka L'illusionniste
