The Illusionist
{4/5} An aging illusionist travels from town to town by train to put on shows, but sometimes there are very few people in the audience. People are more interested in seeing rock bands. He meets a young woman who’s working at a hotel he’s staying at and they form a bond. She sneaks away to go with him when he leaves town. He tries to find a job, but there may not be anything else he can do.
The Illusionist was released in 2010.
There’s another movie called The Illusionist which I like as well — it’s a live action movie starring Edward Norton from 2006.
This is a French animated movie directed by Sylvain Chomet. His other movie The Triplets of Belleville is brilliant and I encourage you to see it if you haven’t.
The beautiful animation is the same style as Triplets — closer to the Japanese Kiki’s Delivery Service than the American Rio.
Also like Triplets, there is a minimum of dialogue. Whereas in Triplets you could follow what was going on without any problems, I felt that we were robbed of some subtleties that could have been there with a bit of dialogue in this movie.
There some funny parts, and some interesting secondary characters. I liked the movie, but not as much as Triplets.
Chomet also wrote the jazzy music for the movie.
The original screenplay was written by Jacques Tati (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday) in the 1950s — the look and character of the illusionist is modelled after Tati.