The Illusionist

Bea says: I had thought this was going to be a feel-good film, perfect for seeing with friends on a cold, dull day between Christmas and New Year.

We are temporarily back in London at the moment, and so headed up to the great value Prince Charles Cinema, just off Leicester Square, where tickets are half the price of the big name cinemas in Leicester Square itself (although much more expensive than they used to be, during my first days in London in the mid-90s!).

This was exquisite to watch - such beautiful animation, the likes of which are rarely seen now as studios use more and more CGI/3D effects. Paris, London, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Edinburgh are captured in such true to life, but soft-focus, detail. I know all these places well and felt I was revisiting them through this film (that bench, that street, that train journey). It wasn't just me - our friends said the same.

There was little dialogue through this achingly sweet yet sad story of a mostly washed-up magician, his rabbit, and a hanger-on he picks up on the Scottish Islands, who eventually finds a better meal ticket than him. Music and occasional murmurings in smatterings of English, French and ?Scottish Gaelic set the scene throughout.

Definitely not feel-good, but wistful, and yes, the perfect thing to see with friends on a dull, cold day between Christmas and New Year.
****

Cecil says: This is apparently a story based on a script by Jacques Tati that never made it to the screen (though there is a moment where the main character stumbles into a cinema showing a Tati film and we see a very brief clip of the man himself, almost Hitchcock style...).

Great characters, though I have to say I saw through the young Highlands lass as soon as she appeared on the scene after the magician's first show in the Scottish pub. But the plot itself didn't really matter.

It was the animation that counted in this film. And if you look at the credits at the end, you see that there were different animators for each of the main characters. Amazing how a dozen different artists could come up with cartoon characters that all fitted so well on the screen together, from the rabbit to the Italian trapeze artists and the Scottish highlanders.

I loved some of the detailed observations. Bea is right about the geography: I could picture the shops on Grassmarket in Edinburgh, and we sat on the very same bench looking down over Waverley station last summer.

But I also loved some of the little details like the crunch of a hearty Scottish Highland handshake; or the pawnbrokers called 'Blair & Brown', which gave the whole film a kind of Aardman Animations feel, though using only-style 2D cartoon characters, which really worked well.

Overall I actually liked this film more than I ever enjoyed Tati's old movies from the 50s and 60s, so hats off to the makers.

***