Deceptions and amusements

Somehow we’ve had a theme in our entertainment lately having to do with magicians, hoaxes, and illusions.

The Prestige

This movie was definitely entertaining… the acting was good, there were lots of intriguing concepts, but I have the following complaints:

– Hard to follow. The DVD cover gushed that you’ll want to watch it again and again – and it’s true, except the reason is that I got lost a few times and missed subtleties that were very important. Maybe they did it on purpose – the magician asks, “are you watching closely?!” If you blink, you’ll miss it. The issues were mostly in passage-of-time and sequence-of-events: there’s a plot device with people reading each other’s diaries, with flashbacks etc, so sometimes that gets a bit confusing. And some of the action occurs in near-darkness and so quickly that you really can’t tell what just happened.

– Disturbing! When the magic tricks go wrong and people get injured… or killed. That kind of thing really freaks me out.

– I mentioned earlier that the acting was good, which is true, but one of the main characters was really not well written as a character. Her motives and feelings were not clear or convincing.

– The movie tricks you into suspending your disbelief and then pulls a totally not-believable trick. Almost like there is such a thing as real magic, when we just went through this whole saga about illusionists and their work and tricks? It kind of left me with a “huh?!” impression.

– A parallel “huh?!” comes at the very end when you discover something about one of the characters that is (I’m assuming) supposed to, in retrospect, make the things he did make sense and be right/moral. But it doesn’t quite work… So you find yourself wanting to watch it again, not because you want to see all that confusing, disturbing stuff again, but just figure out what was really going on now that you know what was really going on.

I’d say do watch it, but be prepared to pay attention very carefully and be a bit bewildered even after the credits roll.

The Turk: a wikipedia article

This was the article-of-the-day earlier this week, and what a winner! This is the kind of story that would make a good movie. They could enhance and fictionalize the lives and relationships of the people involved and come up with some romance or mystery tied in with the enigmatic machine that played chess (and won) against some of the world’s most famous men – Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin! Way before Deep Blue there was The Turk…

The Illusionist

This movie was definitely several cuts above The Prestige. It was artistically filmed, all the characters were strong and believable, and the whole thing hung together very well. It scored on several points that were lacking in Prestige: it flowed well and was easy to follow – something about the sense of pacing and the elements of suspense really pulled you in without feeling like you were being manipulated or tricked. There was plenty of mystery, but you weren’t constantly asking yourself, did I miss something? There were eerie and even shocking moments, but it felt right with the story rather than, “aaa! disturbing!” The interesting comparison comes between the “impossible trick” elements in both movies. In the Illusionist, the impossible trick is never explained but you are kind of OK with that. Somehow they pulled it off very tastefully, and didn’t annoy this viewer, at least.

There is a bit of a flaw with a similar thing to the Prestige: at the very end you find out “what was really going on” and this too is handled better; but you still have this nagging thought: if this is true then what about that earlier event…

But, on the whole, a great movie. I’d recommend it as high quality entertainment.