Search This Blog

Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Prestige 01/10/07

:fresh: Christopher Nolan's film about dueling magicians hit it right on the spot. It is a very clean and complete film. Very beautiful, well acted, and choreagraphed editing wise to a tee. The story is an aptly told one as it is filmed in the present, the past, and the very past, with flashbacks and flashforwards that constantly shift this way and that but never seem forced and seem inseperable from the what the story is. As a constant shifting between who is ahead and who is behind, who we like and who we despise, who has the upper hand? We never know. 

Like I said before this is a very good and decent film. Not once does Nolan misstep. But it is not a great film. Perhaps this is because I saw the twists before they became apparent. (Nolan failed in tricking me with his magic but succeeded in making me enjoy the movie anyway.) I feel that he gave one too many hints as too what lay ahead. But what really made the movie anti-climatic was also one of the main points in the film. In this way I felt dissapointed but enlightened at the same time. It is what Christian Bale says at one point in the film. He refuses to give the secret of a magic trick to his wife for the bullet catching trick saying that if given the magician no longer means anything to the audience. Then at the end of the movie we are given the secret of the magic trick and then suddenly the movie no longer seems so special. And we exit the theatre with the knowledge that an obsession for simple truth and the finding of it is no match for the marvels of one's own imagination. 

No comments:

Post a Comment