We've never met before?

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2016)

Why are the two leads of The Illusionist, Eisenheim and Sophie, so drawn to each other throughout their lives? We are apparently shown in a long flashback sequence. Anyone would recognise this as a flashback even without the words - the softening bloom of the edges, the saturation of the yellows, the slight vignette effect, the ornate shallow focus. This is all very pretty, but it doesn't shed much light on their relationship, other then the fact that it is the classic rich girl drawn to the street tramp and his tricks. And later in the painfully slow, clichéd and draw out love scene, they silently stare into each other's eyes, and the camera keeps it all nice and PG, presenting only vague spots of skin in the flickering candlelight. Perhaps they are silent because after years apart they still have nothing to say. The film gives no indication of any kind that would justify the pair being the soul-mates they are; their characterisation is lazily empty (as are their atrociously inept accents, a result of the unnecessary decision to set the film in some vague, anachronistic period).
But of course this type of film is not about the characters - it holds the same tension and mystery as a heist, or a detective story. It relies the audience, similar to the one at Eisenheim's magic shows, to not think too hard or pay complete attention...to be distracted by the obvious distractions that the magician holds up, or in this case, the director. There are a few clever moments; one is when Eisenheim greets Sophie after years apart with the conventional magician's test that proves she is not one of his plants, but in the case the words are laced with heartbreak and regret. But of course we are not made to care and hope for these two - the flashback has already established that they will be together by the end of the film (because no script would ever tear a pair apart like that and have them simply never see each other again), so where is the tension? At the end, Uhl pulls together all the pieces in our minds, and this is where usually we have our fingers ready at the pause button, to map all the subtle clues and eagerly flick back through the film to spot them. But this film doesn't even grant us that little joy. It shows us flickers of events we have not previously seen, and congratulates itself on being so clever for revealing something that was inevitable. We see the same problem with the main villain, Leopold. He comes with evil twirling moustache and all and as always, is completely convinced that his actions are necessary and for the greater good. This would actually mean something if we saw anything of this world besides a few peasant audiences, beggar boys and faceless policemen. They haven't even cast the Emperor, so who cares about a baddie trying to overthrow him?