Willamena
17-08-2006, 16:33
Spoiler alert.
If you intend to see The Illusionist and want no spoilers, then stop reading now. If you might go see it and don't mind a bit of spoiler that doesn't ruin the (predictable) ending, or if you won't see it at all, then by all means read on.
A friend and I went to the theatre tonight intending to see the 9/11 movie, World Trade Centre, but radio station personnel there were handing out free passes to an advance screening of The Illusionist, so we saw that instead. I enjoyed it very much.
The movie is a love story about a professional illusionist who, as a child, fell in love with a Duchess. After a failed attempt to run away together, the children were separated, only to be reunited 15 years later. The movie has intrigue, romance and murder, and a very odd sound boom that creeps into the top of the picture from time to time, moreso at the beginning than the end. At first it amused the audience, and there was audible laughter. Then it just puzzled them.
People commented on it after the movie, of course. "You would think that for a movie about magic, they could have made that boom disappear!"
That was it, you see. I think that fellow hit the nail on the head. The boom, distracting as it was, was obviously intentional, not an accident. I think it made a statement, like so:
Movies are magic. We are sat down in a theatre and lose ourselves in the story, in the lives of the characters, in the surround sound and the moving pictures. I think with the distracting boom the director was reminding us that it is illusion that we see. In this movie, by being distracted as we were, we are not allowed to lose ourselves in the flow of story, not entirely; we are not allowed to forget that we are only an audience sitting in a theatre watching an illusion.
If you intend to see The Illusionist and want no spoilers, then stop reading now. If you might go see it and don't mind a bit of spoiler that doesn't ruin the (predictable) ending, or if you won't see it at all, then by all means read on.
A friend and I went to the theatre tonight intending to see the 9/11 movie, World Trade Centre, but radio station personnel there were handing out free passes to an advance screening of The Illusionist, so we saw that instead. I enjoyed it very much.
The movie is a love story about a professional illusionist who, as a child, fell in love with a Duchess. After a failed attempt to run away together, the children were separated, only to be reunited 15 years later. The movie has intrigue, romance and murder, and a very odd sound boom that creeps into the top of the picture from time to time, moreso at the beginning than the end. At first it amused the audience, and there was audible laughter. Then it just puzzled them.
People commented on it after the movie, of course. "You would think that for a movie about magic, they could have made that boom disappear!"
That was it, you see. I think that fellow hit the nail on the head. The boom, distracting as it was, was obviously intentional, not an accident. I think it made a statement, like so:
Movies are magic. We are sat down in a theatre and lose ourselves in the story, in the lives of the characters, in the surround sound and the moving pictures. I think with the distracting boom the director was reminding us that it is illusion that we see. In this movie, by being distracted as we were, we are not allowed to lose ourselves in the flow of story, not entirely; we are not allowed to forget that we are only an audience sitting in a theatre watching an illusion.