Adult and animation aren’t words that usually go together, especially as Pixar and DreamWorks have continually skewed the line between the two in the past decade. As the point of animation has become to get multiple demographics into the same theater, animation for grown-ups has fallen by the wayside.
Thankfully there are films like Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionistto remind that emotion and sentiment in animation don’t have to be manufactured within a computer, and needn’t have Imax, 3-D and surround sound to draw in an audience.
The film follows Tatischeff, a down-on-his-luck, aging though quietly dignified illusionist attempting to scrap out a life in 1959 Paris. Magicians and their old-fashioned tricks are an antiquated breed (people want to see rock stars), and the magician finds himself alone in a world that no longer needs him.
That is, until he takes a gig in a Scotland pub, where he finds an appreciative audience and a companion in a young girl who believes he truly does possess magical powers. The girl’s enthusiasm reinvigorates Tatischeff, and she accompanies him to Edinburgh where he plays a rundown theater and acts as a quasi-father figure, doing his best to lavish her with gifts.
However, even as the illusionist’s affection for the girl grows, his career continues to flounder. With nothing left to give and unable to tell her the secret behind his craft, the world again looks a gloomy place to Tatischeff as the film ends.
Legendary French comedic director Jacques Tati originally wrote the script in a 1956 reconciliation letter to his estranged daughter. Tati was a deeply flawed family man, and the sense of loneliness, loss and alienation Tatischeff feels throughout is obviously autobiographical, as is nearly every other part of the film.
The stark contrast in reception Tatischeff receives in Paris and Scotland isn’t surprising considering Tati’s deep and noted abhorrence of the postwar consumerism that ran rampant in French society in the 1950s. Tati’s early career as a mime is also significant, as the film is amazingly almost entirely devoid of dialogue. Chomet deftly allows the visuals and most importantly the music to do the talking, setting the tone of each scene and tenderly telling the story without unneeded exposition and discussion.
However, the biggest wow is the hand drawn animation, beautiful down to the last detail. The charm and grace of the simple drawings, their ability to convey in Tatischeff’s body language his personality and feelings, lie in stark contrast to the mechanical CGI seen in most animated movies today.
Quite simply, The Illusionistcorrects everything that some feel is wrong with popular contemporary animated fare. It isn’t in our face with cutesy witticisms, it doesn’t overtly engineer sentiment and it focuses on character, not a contrived plot. Tati’s backlash against modern France and the film’s rejection of modern animation techniques are poignantly parallel.
I’m not telling you to forget Buzz and Woody, just to give The Illusionista chance. Unlike Tatischeff, you won’t regret it
— Cameron Dunbar is a sophomore studying journalism. Disillusioned?E-mail him at
cd211209@ohiou.edu.
