Review by Simon Zhou

The Illusionist
Dir. Sylvain Chomet 

Review by Simon Zhou

The Illusionist
Dir. Sylvain Chomet 

AN OLD MAN pulls a rabbit out of a hat.  It is an image so commonplace as to be prosaic, too exhaustedly mundane to catch our attention.  But in Sylvain Chomet’s hand-drawn The Illusionist, it is its very familiarity that captivates: its earnest sincerity, its abundant generosity of mirth and melancholy, humour and sadness so thoroughly endearing that even as I clutch for words to describe how it moved me, the truth is that it left me with none. 

Set in the late 1950s and 1960s, The Illusionist is a simple story told beautifully.  A down and out old man who trades only in old-fashioned magic tricks is adopted by a young girl who scrubs floors in a pub in the Scottish highlands.  Enchanted by his humble, whimsical illusions (making a coin appear from behind her ear, turning a bar of soap into a box), and moved by his kindness (he buys her a new pair of red shoes after noticing the way her worn shoes squeak), she follows him onto a boat after his only successful performance (tellingly, in a small town in the Scottish Highlands that is just discovering electricity), and he assumes care of her.  Based on an unproduced Jacques Tati (Playtime, Mon Oncle) screenplay he considered too personal to make, what follows is the story of their relationship, intermittently interrupted by various misfits, played out in derelict hotel rooms with stuffing falling out of the sofas, and watertaps that groan more than spout. 

The film laments the loss of primitive joys and is a touching ode to having a sense of wonder in simple things.  It is an ideology that can be seen in every element of the film’s construction, from the choice to hand-draw the film’s animation to its style of comedy, which draws on old-fashioned slapstick.  And the film shows, unequivocally, that there is still so much pleasure that can be drawn from such humble, traditional forms.  The set-pieces, paying homage to Tati in its play with the absurdity of the human body and the machanical ballet of things, are surprising, poetic and – spectacularly funny.  In its simplicity, there is a generosity that welcomes the audience to laugh.  As for the hand-drawn animation, it is so stunningly beautiful that I could not breathe from the first frame to the last.  Almost dialogue-free, the variety and authenticity of gesture and mannerism in the draugtsmanship (a conspicuously old fashioned term) used to convey each character’s intentions and psychology is a constant source of delight, making the characters feel totally lived in – and if it is possible – real.  Each new shot surprises, from the warmth of the fire in a dingy Scottish pub against a gloomy grey afternoon, to the rippling reflection of a train rushing past against a billowing sky.  Even in the direction, there is a deep respect for traditional cinematic language: no shot is wasted, cuts go unnoticed, and every frame is perfectly chosen, every image lovingly tended to with unfailing attention for every detail and every element. 

At its heart, The Illusionist is a sweetly sad tale about how quickly and easily we are willing to discard that which we once loved.  The old man, based on Tati’s charmingly oblivious, trenchcoat wearing Monsieur Hulot, no longer has a place in the world.  The rejection of his craft is in fact the rejection of himself, and by the same token, the young girl’s fascination with his simple illusions becomes by extension, love for him.  That, for a time, the two are able to share this love in the form of paternal affection, in the giving of small gifts and small lives, is a moving tribute to values of a bygone era.  The two of them are surrounded by other lost artefacts of previously adored amusments, from the depressed clown, to peppy acrobats, to an alcoholic ventriloquist; Chomet imbues each of these stereotypes with such affection that they become real again, arousing a pathos that makes the old magician and young girl’s relationship all the more affecting.  The film decries, in its wryly comic way, the demeaning of art into purely commercial terms (the old man is forced to sell his trade in shop windows, conjuring women’s lingerie) and ultimately, is an emotional plea and belief that the greatest gift we can have is a simple faith and curisioty in small things, that love is based on the possibility of small things to still delight, and that small things, like small lives, matter.

There were many times during the film that I almost cried.  When I got out of the cinema, standing at the intersection outside the Civic thinking of one of the last images of the film, I finally did.  Although I had left my seat, my heart was still in the cinema.  This film is in every way a miracle, and if you have ever been delighted by cinema, which is nothing more than a Small Thing, you owe it to yourself to see it in the two sessions that remain.  I could not recommend this film more.