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How ambivalent/subjective is this movie? (Spoilers!)

posted 9 years ago by CharteredStreets
3 replies | jump to latest

Annoyingly this movie, which I love, is always getting compared to The Prestige (which I also love - I know, insane). Anyway one thing they share is the idea of unreliable narrators, explicitly in The Prestige, and subtly in The Illusionist. One criticism that I've heard leveled at The Illusionist is that, unlike The Prestige, the tricks aren't believable. My explanation was always that it was trying to recreate what the tricks would be like to a contemporary audience, less jaded than our modern eyes. Watching it again I realise another, more obvious explanation: they're specifically how Uhl remembers them. And he is a lover of magic, and part of him adores Eisenheim. In the first scene a tree disappears, so it's hardly too much to imagine that he's telling a somewhat heightened version of events.

Extending this further, specifically to the ending - is this Neil Burger et al. explicitly showing us what Eisenheim was up to the whole time, or is it just what Uhl thinks has happened? There's little ambivalence that Eisenheim takes the train out of Vienna, as we see this during one of the 'objective' (i.e. outwith Uhl's story) scenes. But once we get back to the explanation, we're back in Uhl's head. It's true that the final scene, with Eisenheim and the Duchess reunited, makes it clear but I'm not sure: this could also be read as another of Uhl's imaginings.

So basically my question is, do you think the movie, and particularly the ending, is (even somewhat) ambivalent? Is it possible the Emperor really did kill her, or am I missing something that makes it absolutely certain that she lives?

Thanks in advance for reading my long-winded question.

If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!

[–] DocCasualty 9 years ago

Annoyingly this movie, which I love, is always getting compared to The Prestige (which I also love - I know, insane).

Not at all. I like them both very much and see them as very different movies, only both do involve magic and were released close to one another.

One criticism that I've heard leveled at The Illusionist is that, unlike The Prestige, the tricks aren't believable.

Like that trick in The Prestige where they can duplicate a man over and over again with Tesla's machine? 

My explanation was always that it was trying to recreate what the tricks would be like to a contemporary audience, less jaded than our modern eyes.

I feel the same way. The exact mechanics are superfluous. The point is that Eisenheim was performing absolutely amazing inexplicable tricks, but we really are the audience he must stupefy to sell that point for the sake of the story.

Watching it again I realise another, more obvious explanation: they're specifically how Uhl remembers them. And he is a lover of magic, and part of him adores Eisenheim. In the first scene a tree disappears, so it's hardly too much to imagine that he's telling a somewhat heightened version of events.

Another valid observation as we are always getting a story through the teller and their spin on it. Similar to legends where a story has been told and embellished so many times over the years it is hard to pick apart what is fact and what is fiction.

Extending this further, specifically to the ending - is this Neil Burger et al. explicitly showing us what Eisenheim was up to the whole time, or is it just what Uhl thinks has happened? There's little ambivalence that Eisenheim takes the train out of Vienna, as we see this during one of the 'objective' (i.e. outwith Uhl's story) scenes. But once we get back to the explanation, we're back in Uhl's head. It's true that the final scene, with Eisenheim and the Duchess reunited, makes it clear but I'm not sure: this could also be read as another of Uhl's imaginings.

So basically my question is, do you think the movie, and particularly the ending, is (even somewhat) ambivalent? Is it possible the Emperor really did kill her, or am I missing something that makes it absolutely certain that she lives?

I never thought about this alternate explanation, though I think it has merit. I choose to think we see what really happened to Eisenheim and the Duchess through Uhl's 'eyes' as the detective in him begins to piece together how they were all duped. IDK, maybe I just like the happy ending aspect of this or that they beat the system and found the happiness they had been denied.

"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." 2001: A Space Odyssey

[–] CharteredStreets 9 years ago

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. And yes, 'believable' is entirely the wrong word for The Prestige, but in fairness the duplicating-the-man thing isn't technically a 'trick,' in the same way that actually sawing a woman in half wouldn't be.

If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!

[–] savcam500 8 years ago

NOT a grammar Nazi, but did you mean "ambiguous"?

something terribly clever.