Excellent, but David Bowie was for me the unexpected triumph

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2006)

I loved the film for many reasons. But one of them is an element of the film that will probably be ignored by most other reviewers so I feel the need to underline it: David Bowie in this movie did the unbelievable. He performed a character who is *more* conventional in every possible way than he himself is. The way he found to totally camouflage his own outstanding (exceptionally weird) self and to invoke an entirely different self who beamed a totally different intensity is ...obscure to me. Astoundingly artful.
In a way, he captured the greatness of the character he had played in the "Man Who Fell to Earth" by being someone entirely different. And (coincidence?) the character he plays in "The Prestige" (the real historical person) is also rumoured to have "fallen to Earth". Plus he had a similar lifepath to the character David Bowie played in the "Man Who Fell to Earth" - but a radically different persona, a mesmerizingly stable, solid presence with intent and intensity.
A perception bender. Prestigious prestidigitation.
Petros, ttetpos@yahoo.com