Double Misdirection Inversion of Justice

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2007)

The ILLUSIONIST seems like a simple romantic tale as long as you do not think to carefully about the plot. One of the few movies of late that has captured my constant interest from start to finish. Often when plots are boring or overworked I watch movies in reverse from back-to-front. It took me a while to figure out that this was a double misdirection. On the surface the movie has a happy ending which in this review I intend to give away in some detail. If you study the facts of the case, it appears a great criminal injustice was done, not to speak of the dissolution of a Royal household. More of that later.
The film captures the atmospherics of Wittingen's Vienna, the Hapsburg's "double eagle", strictly managed but quietly chaotic residual Holy Roman Empire. Creation of this essential primary illusion it is highly dependent on special effects. Much sepia-like yellow tint to imitate gaslight and early electrics. Details, sets, costumes and language are all pretty good. The granite monumental architecture is especially evocative of the time. Traffic on the streets consists of fine carriages broughams and dray wagons, no motorcars. As a missing piece of authentication I noticed neither street cleaners nor horse leavings on the fine brick streets. In the 1890s you'll need one or the other. I wonder if the special effects guys know how to visually simulate piles of horse deposits.
The trouble with mysteries revolving around magic or the supernatural is that the an inexplicable yet obvious ploy often gets explained away by powers out of the bounds of the physical universe. The trickery performed in ILLUSIONIST is largely unrevealed and defies even modern scientific plausibility. It is understood that the Illusionist Eisenheim (Iron-Home in German) is not a supernatural spiritualist and the movie only leads us to believe that souls return from the dead as a deception. But the film makers ultimately cannot resist cheating and credit Eisenheim with a kind of holographic engine not yet invented or even possible in 1895. Use of magic is an easy way out of constructing and solving a realistic puzzle. Puzzles, mysteries, complex turns of fate and scientific solutions are a mental calisthenics. Is the decline of difficult but rational plot creation, the failure to write complex but soluble mysteries, a sign of decline in literature? Is over dependence on magic and sci-fi (special effects in general) reflective of a lazy uneducated audience?
ILLUSIONIST hid the *MacGuffin* (secret sleeping potion) to the degree that it kept the audience guessing. The plot was a well executed misdirection in keeping with the first principle of stage conjuring. This was a fine romantic adventure with seeming happy ending and the good-guy gets the babe (a commoner wins the Duchess), Jessica Biel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin
Now back to as yet undiscussed key element. There was a crime committed, and though detected by the police inspector at the very end, we can be certain it went unpunished. The subjective view of the protagonists is that evil was averted and good triumphed. However a careful review of the plot will expose the fact that this was an inversion of right and wrong and we can state clearly that the subversive self indulgent magician won at the cost of a major diplomatic and social transgression. Prince Leopold was innocent of the murder (there was no murder), and framed by Eisenheim. The moral ambiguity here may be an accidental reflection of the confused morality of the screen writers and director. This appears to be an exemplary instance of how a politically correct circumstantial case can be created to liquidate political opposition. Was there really any plot to overthrow the Emperor? Was this "secret" a fabrication of the magician contrived to eliminate his rival? The jewels and locket were obviously planted evidence. Was the subversion of a Royal marriage alliance really in the best interest of the people when it is a given that such conjunctions are made from higher diplomatic points of view with peace and economic stability as a major goal?
It is silly to make too much of a trivial romantic adventure, but I think it amusing and revealing to note that this movie is about a heinous crime perpetrated in the name of a childhood delusion of love. In today's world we might give it another name; stalking, false accusation (and suicide) of a rival and enticing (if not kidnapping) of an unsophisticated and rather sheltered young woman away from her family. Not just a ladies maid or minor cousin of a newly minted Baronet, but a Duchess no less. The political rank here (Duke-Duchess) is about the equivalent of a provincial Viceroy. That is, the Governor who rules and taxes a large region as proxy of the head of state. Not trivial. Can we say that the shallow political thought process of this filmmaker views anything like a structured monarchy as inherently evil, and feels justified to recommend any excess in disruption and amoral behavior?
I'll do my homework and read the originating story. Clever tale but the obvious outcome is only half the payload.
Indiana Bill