The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet, 2010): France

Reviewed by William Barton. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2011.

Sylvain Chomet, director of The Illusionist, was able to tell a compelling story though the use of images reminding us of what film was like in the silent era. The Illusionist is up for an Oscar this year as “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year.” And no, it’s not the same film as The Illusionist with Edward Norton Jr. and Jessica Biel.

Syvail Chomet has adapted a screenplay by Jacques Tati into a relatively dialogue-less film who’s story is told almost entirely with images. The film centers around a struggling magician who moves from town to town searching for a job performing on stage. In every city, he is chased out of theaters by a feminine group of rock’n’rollers. His magic impresses a young girl named Alice who shows appreciation for his work. He buys the girl a pair of shoes to reciprocate the appreciation. She then sneaks aboard his boat and travels with him from town to town. The illusionist struggles to support the both of them as they travel and eventually must take odd jobs. The illusionist is constantly being taken advantage of by the people around him and he must learn how to navigate through the world and keep a sense of integrity and justice.

The Illusionist was reminiscent of films like Spirited Away with unique artwork and inventive story telling with minimal dialogue. The Illusionist brings a more serious concept and story to the animation world again giving animation a more prominent and legitimate form of film. Simple shots reveal a lot about the character’s situations and the director takes very little and forces the audience to actively watch the film for cues that reveal character’s emotions and motivations. Although this film contains dialogue, dialogue is minimal forcing the director to rely more heavily on images.

The focus on telling a story through images rings true with the original purpose of film. Before films had sound, they could only rely on images. The Illusionist is a great film in that regard as they was never a confusing moment and the story was told in a very straight forward manner. The ability to tell a story with such little dialogue is a testament to the director’s vision and technical ability.

While I did not particularly enjoy the story of the film, my beef’s all stem from the script. The director executed the script in an interesting and beautiful way. The artwork for the film was beautiful and the animation style was definitely worth seeing. It was interesting to see a film that used so little dialogue.