The Illusionist | Depressing without being bleak

For my first film of the Victoria festival, I chose the Oscar nominated L’Illusioniste, partially because of the nomination, partially because it’s animated, and partially because of it’s French pedigree. It remains my contention that you’d be hard pressed to find a culture who’ve been honing their motion picture skills longer than any other on the planet. As for the animation, The Illusionist can actually boast the 21st century’s distinction of not being drawn by a computer, offering gorgeous hand-painted scenery, and character renderings in the spirit of Ralph Bakshi and Ub Iwerks.

Tati is an aging stage magician, perhaps old enough to even be considered aged. His advanced years have worn away some of the flourish from his craft, even if his skills remain razor sharp. Whether this works for or against him doesn’t seem to matter as there is little work to be found in 1959 Paris. When a wandering Scotsman brings him back to his tiny village on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, he finds a new audience and a new fleeting flicker of adulation, best exemplified by Alice, his hotel’s scullery maid. When Tati inevitably heads back to civilization, or Edinburgh anyway, Alice tags along with this magic man, not as an apprentice (which you would figure would be the case) but as surrogate daughter, someone for him to dote on and buy expensive gifts for. But as Alice’s tastes grow more extravagant and finding paying gigs in the ever-more-cynical world of 1959 gets more difficult, will they be able to maintain the magical bond between them?

And while Tati might be the one weaving the stage magic, there are plenty of others conjuring their own illusions in this film. Tati’s agent creates the pretense that he’s actually looking out for his best interest, the the band of heart throbs that Tati keeps running into tend to spend much of their time off stage mincing about with elderly stage managers, even the crowd of Scots who received Tati so warmly were just as impressed by their tavern’s one working lightbulb. Nothing is quite what it seems, especially as the so-called free spirits plying their trade are coping with poverty, despair and suicidal musings. It was strange to watch a story about a time when that way of life was sputtering out – especially since you can still see examples of the culture over 50 years later in the form of Cirque du Soleil, Chris Angel, and Jeff Dunham. Vaudeville seems to have been enjoying a simmering renaissance, or a protracted death rattle.

And while the story is clearly infused with plenty of morose undertones as it tracks the moment a spark of wonder is kindled all the way to when it is extinguished, even at its bleak conclusion, hope springs eternal as this kind of imagination is irrepressible. As Tati continues on with prestidigitation and entertaining those who are interested, the ending is actually a little ambiguous, but at the very least it doesn’t close the door on magic entirely. And all subtext aside, this is a beautifully animated film, and a treat to watch as many of the techniques on display here haven’t been in use for decades.