The latest animated film by acclaimed director Sylvain Chomet, The Illusionist can be seen as a simple eulogy for an extinct way of life. The film takes place in a melancholy Edinburgh populated by aging vaudevillian performers trying to stay alive in a fast-changing modern world that has left them behind. We center on Tatischeff, an old-school magician finding it harder to book gigs. It's 1959 and the kids aren't interested in magicians and jugglers anymore, not when they have trendy young rock 'n' roll bands nabbing their attention. Our lonely entertainer travels around the U.K. looking desperately for an audience, finding temporary work in a seaside town in Scotland.
In a striking scene early in the film we see a group of kilted drunks dancing and playing bagpipes in a Scottish pub where Taticheff performs. The gorgeous scene is lit by gas lanterns and candlelight — that is, until the owner turns them all off and decides to install one of those newfangled light bulbs. The light in the scene changes completely; now it's colder and uninviting. A jukebox is then dragged in from another room and begins to blast rock 'n' roll. The pub now looks like it could be anywhere, and our magician is about to lose his job to a machine.
In this respect, The Illusionist has a lot in common with its flashier Oscar competitor, Toy Story 3: Both films are about the people (and playthings) society no longer has a use for.
Some brightness creeps into Tatischeff's life when he befriends an orphan girl who believes his magic is real. Their new father/daughter relationship is where the film finds its grounding, especially after Tatischeff leaves Scotland and the girl runs away to follow him. They take up residence in an Edinburgh hotel packed with other discarded circus performers; Chomet's foggy rendering of the city sets the tone perfectly as we observe the decaying lives of these performers struggling to eke out a living. The acrobats are fortunate enough to find a way to hone their physical skill while working in commercial painting, but other neighbors aren't so well off: the ventriloquist becomes an alcoholic, and the sad clown next door is ready to hang himself.
Tatischeff tries to find work as an auto mechanic, then later performs humiliating magic tricks with a brazier in front of a woman's department store. While he tries to brighten Alice's world with gifts and magic, his own life becomes a struggle for every last penny.
Chomet is working with an abandoned screenplay from one of cinema's greatest comic directors, Jacques Tati (Mr. Hulot's Holiday). The magician is drawn in Tati's likeness ("Tatischeff" is the director's original birth name), and the father/daughter relationship portrayed in the film is based on Tati's real life.
As you have probably figured out by now, The Illusionist is a profoundly sad film — but one that goes down surprisingly easily. There are light comic touches everywhere, and an adorable little love story is tucked in the middle. Chomet finds humanity in all his broken subjects; they're creepy but lovable, and we're able to understand these characters even though they barely utter a word. Which is good, since like Chomet's previous film (2003's The Triplets of Belleville), The Illusionist functions as a silent film, with a world of character development portrayed through simple gestures and body language. It's cinema in its purest form.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.