Demob Happy

More CGI and not enough trompe l’oeil

4/10

It seems an odd condition of contemporary cinema that two films on such niche subjects could be released almost at the same time. Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Prestige’ (which I haven’t seen) and ‘The Illusionist’, both about turn of the century stage magicians, were released very close together. This has happened before, with Turman Capote’s writing of ‘In Cold Blood’ bizarrly the subject of two films: ‘Capote’ and, slightly later, ‘Infamous’, the latter sinking to obscurity. Whether this is indicative or not of a paucity of original ideas is a moot point. Directed by Neil Burger (no? Me neither), ‘The Illusionist’ is more than a little silly - taking an interesting subject matter and, compounded by the release of ‘The Prestige’, ensuring that an intelligent film on the topic will not be made until Hollywood runs out of ideas again (then again, perhaps soon).

What is particularly perverse about ‘The Illusionist’ is the fact that in order to recreate the smoke and mirrors tricks of the period, the film employs same-old CGI effects to no astonishment. Cinema is, of course, trompe l’oeil, but this film completely fails to rouse the sense of awe and mystery that surrounded these performances, or demostrate any showmanship of its own. CGI is a pet hate of mine that grows year on year. I yearn for an era of cinema that could re-create, for instance, the visceral body horror of ‘The Thing’ with make-up and animatronics, or the tangible cityscapes of ‘Bladerunner’ using only modelwork: films made in the 1980s, possibly the most (unfairly?) maligned decade in cinema, but with considerably more craft than the majority of CGI saturated movies of today. Watching the fourth, lamentable, installment of Indiana Jones was particularly depressing, the last half an hour having been entirely handed over to post-production geeks with no attention span whatsoever; the magic and illusion conspicuous in its absence.

What struck me particularly about ‘The Illusionist’ is that whatever ingenious trompe l’oeil used at the turn of century: well-honed slight of hand, lighting, mirrors and trap doors, for instance, have been lost by modern day filmmakers, who prefer to scrawl much less-credible cartoonish imagery on screen instead. Interestingly, in the build-up to his latest Batman project Christopher Nolan railed against the excessive use of CGI: I really must see ‘The Prestige’ to see if it validates his claims.

Edward Norton plays ‘Eisenheim’ the eponyous Illusionist with a dodgy Derren Brown style beard and an even dodgier Germanic accent. In fact, the majority of the cast seem uncomfortable with the accent, resulting in some laugh-out-loud acting performances: Paul Giametti is particularly guilty of hamming it up, one eyebrow perpetually arched as if rehearsing for a pantomine. More hokey than hocus pocus, the film has one of those ‘Big Twists’ (trademark shared by ‘The Usual Suspects’ and ‘The Sixth Sense’, and increasingly difficult to conjure) that is revealed with a magician’s ta-da! but is laughably predictable. Without spoiling it for you, it’s an easy trap door in a film that depicts conjuring and trickery but has none of its own. Poor.