Candy for the mind

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2006)

I did something tonight that I have never done before. I saw a first run movie, twice in the same weekend. I can't remember the last time I've seen two first run movies in the same weekend (I suspect it was in high school), I do remember the last time I saw the same movie twice in theaters (Memento).
As everyone who knows me know, I'm a serious Christopher Nolan fan. Ever since I saw Memento I've been hailing him as the second coming of Alfred Hitchcock, and have the full expectation that when his career is said and done he will be universally recognized certainly as the greatest director of his time, possibly of all time. Greatness is often achieved by making a single innovation in your craft and repeating it with increasingly mastering execution. No one has ever used non-sequential time lines as effectively as Nolan did with Memento, and my one reservation about his place in Hollywood history has been that that style could never be as masterfully used in another film again... that his second work could never be equaled, let alone surpassed.
The Prestige has reinforced my confidence in my initial assessment. The flash backs he used in Begins showed that he has an understanding of the technique that is unrivaled, however the use of it was not nearly as complex as it was in his early works. Prestige more follows his first work, The Following's, use of non-sequential time than Memento's in that the ordering of the scenes is very complex, by far his most complex yet. Not only are the scenes ostensibly randomly arranged, but also in parallel following the thoughts of two men at the same time. But of course the arrangement is not random, the order is there specifically to misdirect the audience... much like the magicians in the film do when performing their tricks.
But it goes beyond misdirection, the scenes themselves are very powerful imagery investigating guilt, sacrifice and obsession... but the time line adds to that as well. Following seemed to use this style to add to the suspense and give the audience a little puzzle to figure out, Memento used them to do all that and force the audience to feel like the protagonist, The Prestige uses it to do everything that Memento did only the protagonist is not on screen, it is audience. With ever twist and turn you feel the mystique of a magic show, scratching your head not at how anything particular on screen happened, but how the story could come together like it does.
The most amazing thing is I still can't figure out how Nolan does it, the emotions Memento and Prestige invoke when seeing them for the first time is pure ecstasy, I know of nothing that can do the same. When its over you wish you could forget everything you just saw and watch it again just to feel that way again and again. But then you watch it again anyhow, because it was so phenomenal with the expectation of not being nearly as good as the first time, and you see all the little things you missed the first time around and just marvel at the mastery of it all and get a chance to look back into the crowd and watch their jaws drop as pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
9/10: Not quite Memento but close. My only misgiving is was I was I had the puzzle together enough to see the big picture about half way through the film, although I know only one person thus far who has had the same experience. Expect to see lots of 10's on this one, they're well deserved.