Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:26:44 AM
PICK
Jessica Biel In The Illusionist, Opens August 18th
The Illusionist is set in Prague and Vienna (with a passing reference
to Budapest) around the early 1900s (fin de siecle) probably around 1910.
It has big dog actors Ed Norton (who plays the illusionist Eisenheim)
and Paul Giamatti (who plays Inspector Uhl, chief of police in Vienna).
Norton is fabulous (there is the air of Rasputin about him in this role),
playing a Houdini-like performance artist / magician whose illusions are
impressive (he makes an orange tree grow from a seed in a few minutes
on the stage; he can conjure spirits out of thin air who talk and interact
with the audience). But its his calm, very polished delivery of
lines about life and death, power, time and space, while performing,
that makes him a mystic to some. People in the street begin to follow up.
He's not just a magician, he's a prophet who is leading the masses to reject
"scientific materialism" and reconnect with the spiritual side of the world.
All without saying anything explicit but allowing the audience to interpret
his magic and comment on it.
Jessica Biel is the Countess Sophie Von Teschen, who doesn't have many
lines but she's hot enough to inflame dear young Eisenheim (and the mid-30s Eisenheim)
and set in motion his life and this story.
Giamatti will likely get a nod for best supporting actor
around Oscars' time; he reminds me of smaller Peter Ustinov in those
Agatha Christie type whodunnits. As chief of police, he and his men
watch over the Countess, protecting / spying on her. He's also "aligned"
with the Crown Prince, who has offered him power should he take the throne.
On one level, it's a love story in two parts. Sophie and Eisenheim as teens fall
for one another but are separated by class (she's a countess, he's the son of a
cabinet maker); because they can't be together, he runs away and wanders the world
learning magical arts (in the East, of course, where else would you go). Years later,
they meet again, but now there is a dimension of political power thrown in the mix.
He's the famous Eisenheim the illusionist; she's about to be engaged to Crown Prince
Leopold (played by Rufus Sewell, who has a slightly unnatural googly eye, if you know
who I'm talking about, which fits his character, a supposedly unhinged, jealous,
wife-beater type who wants to overthrow his dad, Ference Jozsef). Eisenheim and Sophie
are still in love after all these years. Of course there has to be a sex seen. But
what's an illusionist to do?
On another level, the movie is a con game like the movie the Sting,
played by the Illusionist to make Sophie (and eventually himself)
disappear without incurring the wrath or hot pursuit of Prince Rufus.
FYI: The film begins with Giamatti reporting to Crown Prince
Leopold about the whereabouts of the mysterious Eisenheim, and
in doing so the movie goes back to who Eisenheim was as a boy
and who he became. Giamatti is thus the narrator.
Send this page to a friend
|
