L’illusionniste / The Illusionist

Not to be confused with The Illusionist, the 2006 film with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, itself easy to confuse with 2005’s The Prestige. All centre on stage magicians and prestidigitation, but L’illusionniste is very different, no thriller or murder mystery, but a small-scale drama from the director of Les Triplettes de Belleville, Stephen Chomet.

The story of the script is quite interesting, written by renowned mime Jacques Tati in 1956 but never produced. The animated illusionist is clearly a depiction of Tati himself, with a section in a cinema added to the film just to drive this point home, so this is something like a new Tati film. It’s also worth knowing that the dynamic of the characters is intended to mirror the fondness of father for daughter, because without knowing this beforehand, it is very hard not to see the film in a very different way – and besides, the matter is complicated by the fact that the daughter in question was abandoned by Tati as an infant…although even the matter of which of two estranged daughters the script was inspired by is in dispute. Indeed, central to the problem of this film is that it often doesn’t make its concepts clear enough.

Les Triplettes de Belleville was of course in many ways a tribute to Tati and his Hulot character, but L’illusionniste is altogether more melancholy and realistic than Chomet’s previous film. With stage magicians losing the attention of their audiences, the central character decides to leave France for England (it was Czechoslovakia in the Tati script). Having no luck in London, he goes to perform in Scotland, and there makes friends with an impressionable young woman who marvels at his talents. He buys her a train fare to Edinburgh, then pays for her board and lodging, and lavishes gifts upon her, struggling hard and working several jobs for the money. She, meanwhile, does nothing but keep house and do some cooking, not only for him but other down-and-out performers in the lodging house.

In the end, she finds a dashing man and the illusionist leaves her behind to find a new way to live, all but penniless and alone. If you see the story from his point of view, it’s a bittersweet tale of self-sacrifice and affection. But focus on her and her motives…and you start to wonder. If you accept that she genuinely thinks the Illusionist can work magic and has unlimited resources, then she’s at first a bit thick and by the end a total moron. Even without common sense her experiences should have made things clear, and they clearly aren’t living lives of luxury. If you think she’s figured it out, she’s a leech and a scrounger. Either way, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t get a job, why she shouldn’t realise that finding a new man in her life could upset her illusionist friend.

Some parts of the film are very funny, especially when the illusionist thinks his rabbit has been cooked. One shot at the end, when light moves as the pages of a book are blown in the wind, is stunningly beautiful. Edinburgh looks incredible, and its realisation was testament to the local artists used for the film. But there is so much more this film should have been, but wasn’t. I would be surprised – indeed, disappointed – if the film won the Oscar, even if it is more sophisticated and artistic than Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon. For sophistication and artistry are not all that go into a good film.

Les Triplettes de Belleville / The Triplets of Belleville / Belleville Rendez-vous

Les Triplettes de Belleville, somewhat confusingly retitled Belleville Rendezvous here in the UK after the song that opens the film, is a 2003 animated co-production between France, Belgium, Canada and the UK, but French-written, French-directed and overall very, very French indeed. One of the handful of arthouse animations to make an impact on the mainstream, along with the likes of Persepolis, it has become something of an animated classic.

The story is simple, if surreal. A young boy (who in his childhood looks incredibly like a caricature of Peep Show's David Mitchell) is raised by his grandmother to participate in the Tour de France. However, when his grandmother's vehicle for coaching him is sabotaged, he is one of the cyclists to fail a mountain stage, dismounting and getting into the van to be carried the rest of the way. However, this is not his grandmother's van, and he is whisked off to the mysterious Big Apple-like city of Belleville. Only his grandmother and three mysterious triplets can save him from enslavement and eventual death at the hands of the French mafia.

The film is, as I said, extremely French. The plot is very French. The way the film starts with a miserable life so surreal as to be hilarious is extremely French (the idyllic little home gets an elevated railway bridge built so close to it that it actually forces the building to lean out of its path). The character design is incredibly French, every character a newspaper caricature brought to life - each and every design is lovingly playful and grotesque, from the adorable little old lady to the funny little mafia busybody who seems to be at least half mouse. And that merciless and absurd ending is extremely French, too. There are even live-action clips of the Hulot films to show a direct influence.

And leave it to the French to make something ugly, absurd and at times disgusting (the Triplets for some reason seem to have a diet consisting entirely of frogs and tadpoles) and yet make it full of heart and affection. It may be hard to care for the wiry, sharp-nosed, silent grandson apparently named 'Champion'(there is too little dialogue for names to actually be established, other than that of Bruno the dog), but it would be very difficult not to care about determined little Mrs. Souza (the grandmother and protagonist), and one would have to be cold-hearted indeed to wish her to fail.

Because of the small, private scale of the story, the anti-epic flavour, I can't see many considering this their favourite film or best animation of all time - but equally, there can be very few who would not smile through it, and enjoy the quirkiness, the eccentricity, the sheer delight in the medium. And whatever you think of the art style, it cannot be denied that the animation on show here is amongst the most technically beautiful ever seen.