Oh what a tangled web...

Rating: 2/10 (22 December 2006)

When I left the cinema after watching 'The Prestige', I tried to make head or tail of its storyline and eventually had to give up. This movie is a hotchpotch of unclear situations, flashbacks, mysterious allusions to the extent that in the end nothing makes much sense. Some of the comments on this website did help clarify a number of issues, but in the end the tortuous plot and the all-too-frequent twists and turns had me throw in the towel. It is to be regretted that, in order to ensure the success (?) of a movie, film directors have to resort to irritating 'postmodern' techniques requiring an above-average IQ and a PhD in cinema studies. Oh, for the simplicity and directness of 'Snowwhite and the seven dwarfs'! Among the many unresolved issues, one detail continues to exercise my mind: what is the significance of the small red ball which continues to be thrown at some of the characters and is then thrown back to the sender?