Magic is a fascinating art form because it plays with our need to discover the illusion, whilst feeding our desire for it to be real supernatural power. Neil Burger’s The Illusionist takes this desire and runs with it, constructing a world where the audience is asked to question whether events in the film are mystical or trickery. The same technique was used in Christopher Nolan’s thriller The Prestige with great success. Unfortunately, The Illusionist provides a less stimulating experience, falling short of the rewarding turn of events in Nolan’s film. However, Burger’s movie still executes an intriguing plot with a decent cast and a strong visual and aural atmosphere.

Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) is a successful performer in Vienna at the dawn of the 20^th century. His popularity garners the interest of the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), who attends one of Eisenheim’s shows and volunteers his date, Sophie (Jessica Biel) for the final magic act. Eisenheim discovers Sophie was his childhood sweetheart, a relationship disallowed by their difference of class. Eisenheim and Sophie’s romance reignites and they begin to disrupt the plans of Prince Leopold, who needs to marry Sophie as part of a plan to overthrow his father, the Emperor in an attempt to introduce a new form of government. Paul Giamatti plays Inspector Uhl, who is ordered by Leopold to discover Eisenheim’s the secrets and stop him interfering with his plan.

The performances overall are engaging, Norton and Giamatti evoke calm and deliberate characters, although it would have been nice to see a little more intensity between the two. Jessica Beil is very complimenting as Sophia and Rufus Sewell shines as the frustrated, violent and yet intellectual Prince. He is an unlikely antagonist, carrying ideas of fair government and rational thought – an interesting adversary to Eisenheim, who lives off mysticism, illusions and suspension of logic.

Overpowering the performances is the visual style of the film, the use of a strong tungsten filter and moody dark vignetting pervades most scenes, which partly detracts from any sense of realism and thrill. It feels calmer to watch though, especially with the slower movement of the camera and less erratic cutting of many modern pictures. Whether this style is too slow or relaxing will depend on the mood of the viewer, it certainly has the ability to go both ways for each individual.

The sound design compliments the visual style well. The overall feel would have been atrocious if there was a busy soundtrack, and luckily there isn’t. A downplayed sound mix with excellent brooding music by composer Philip Glass is a treat. Fans of Glass will not be disappointed by this score.

 

Unfortunately comparisons to The Prestige are going to haunt this film, and vice versa. The topic and mechanics of the stories are too similar. There are fewer thrills in The Illusionist and it maintains a slower pace. The magic tricks are based more in fantasy than The Prestige, some are even performed through obvious computer generated visual effects. The conflict between the characters is also less complicated and intense. Therefore Neil Burger’s film is a lot easier for the audience to follow, although the end portion of the film may be too abrupt for some.

For those of you who haven’t seen either picture, The Illusionist is still worth a watch. Food for thought and debate will certainly come from this movie – something any viewer should want out of a mystery.