A French cartoon about a magician nearing the end of his career. We follow him around as he performs his tricks for disinterested audiences, or practically no audience at all. He is an old school sort of act, who can’t compete with things like rock n roll. For company he has a slightly ill tempered rabbit-and a young woman who follows him from one of his few successful gigs.
The animation is in the style of Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, the original version with it’s hip and cool 1961 feel to it. The Illusionist is a stunningly beautiful film. London and Edinburgh have starring roles as well as countless train rides and scenes of our heroes wandering aimlessly through the streets and countryside. The music was subtle and lovely and melancholy.
Where The Illusionist left me wanting was in the story department. There was next to no dialogue, and a good deal of that was in French. I was never clear what the time period was, though it did seem to be somewhere in the early 1960s judging from a couple of cars and a band that bore a passing resemblance to the Beatles. We follow around this old man and this young woman and watch-as nothing happens.
There were a couple of funny bits and a couple of sad bits, but there was no plot to speak of. We kind of drop into the Illusionist’s life and watch him go about the boring business of being a hardly working magician. We see him ride trains and ferries. We see him check into cheap motels. We see him preform in small rundown theaters, the middle of a busy pub, and a department store window. But these are all random events without meaning or import.
Maybe it’s that whole Art House thing, I have seldom understood movies that are meant to hold some deeper meaning.
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