DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

The new film from Sylvain Chomet, based on an unfilmed semi-autobiographical script by Jacques Tati, is wonderful. Set in the 1950’s, THE ILLUSIONIST follows a magician who is playing to nearly empty crowds as he travels around Europe trying to find new gigs. The venues of these new gigs become more and more random and obscure as he struggles to capture an audience that’s preoccupied with rock and roll and material goods. While performing in a pub in Scotland, he meets a young girl who is convinced that he can really do magic. Out of loneliness, he feeds into this belief and she eagerly accompanies him on the road.The time and place of THE ILLUSIONIST is essential as it explores issues like the death of vaudeville style shows and the emergence of commercialism and pop music. It centers on artists whose lives are destroyed because they no longer have a place to do what they do best. Along with the magician, there’s a clown, a ventriloquist, midgets and acrobats, all who struggle to find a new place in the world now that there is no one left with them to connect. It also deals with meaning of friendship and the desire to share a life to make it enjoyable. THE ILLUSIONIST takes a look back at a lost world with a slight romanticism and melancholy through the eyes of a true visionary. It may sound like a downer, but while it gets into many dark issues, there is also a jovial and entertaining side to the film that enchants as you experience the magic of the world that Chomet creates.One of the most extraordinary things about this film is that there is essentially no dialogue. Through imagery, music sounds and colorful characters, Chomet weaves a very layered story deep with emotion and subtext. There is a mixture of wonder, mixed with loneliness and heartbreak that culminates in an ending that really caught me off guard. This is a film that will stay with me for a long time and makes me want to run home and watch the films of Jacques Tati.

On a side note… If you have yet to see Sylvain Chomet’s great fist feature, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, please do. It’s a very different film, but absolutely enchanting.