The conjuror’s terrifying tale

This is the first Christopher Nolan film that I have seen, but The Prestige would most definitely rank remarkably high on my list (or any list for that matter) of the most tantalizing films ever made. I use the word tantalizing because of the sheer landscape of the film. As he film progresses, layer after layer peels away drawing one into the prescient world of …woof……….Magic! Illusion! Secrets! The imagery is brutal, uncompromising, almost killing…the dead stage assistant, the bloodied, severed finger, love and betrayal, malice, revenge, the dead magician floating in a water tank…the blood soaked wings of a dead bird…a tiny black cat surviving an electrocution…surely, there have been better films made and there will be more to come. But this is perhaps of the best (if not the best) portrayals of human failings.

The lure of the film does not lie in the telling of the story. It attracts the gray cells in a way that completely blows one apart. Not until the very end does one realize that the build up was profound, almost gimmicky towards a climax that raises the bar more than a few notches. This is riveting, tough, genuine stuff. The film might seem jerky to many, the multi-layered characterizations notwithstanding. But that precisely is the pull of this brilliant cinematic creation.

Bringing alive the world of trickery and illusion is a craft that a few film-makers have attempted in the past. Nolan’s film though traverses uncharted territory. It tries to amalgamate the profligacy of science with the make-believe world of magic, all the time keeping the delight, rage, and tenacity of two completely-human men in the foreground. Men who want to lead a normal life but are consumed by such vicious hatred for each other that, the very leading of as normal life is jeopardized. For the marvelously gifted Hugh Jackman who plays Robert Angier, the film unfolds as a kaleidoscope of adventures especially in his travels to America in search of the scientist Tesla who is in the process of completing his experiments on a machine that will aid in Angier’s new illusionist trick called The Transported Man. This he claims, would be the real Transported Man, contrary to his bitter rival Alfred ‘Freddie’ Borden’s trick, also called the Transported Man.

The soul of the film, though is Christian Bale as Freddie Borden—the maddeningly evil, terrifying magician for whom ‘secrets’ are life. But even this genius has his own vulnerabilities, the pretty young stage assistant (Scarlet Johanssen) who dumps Angier for him and his undying love for his daughter are believable yet purely ingenious additions to his personality. Bale plays Borden with amazing finesse, getting each expression and scene right. He is simply mind-blowing. The presence of a discerningly modest Michael Caine lends continuity and grace to the film. Needless to say, he prepares the viewer for this engaging and (to use the same word again) tantalizing piece of cinema by defining a magic trick: the pledge, the turn and the prestige…because whatever disappears has to come back!

(Of course, I admit to a tearing curiosity to go through all of Nolan’s filmography.)