The Illusionist

Few films attempt to capture the world of magic and illusion, and those that do attempt usually fail. Capturing magic on film is like capturing a tornado on film... It may look good, but there's something powerful missing. There's a 'feeling' that can only be felt by one standing in the path of a tornado, and a feeling that can only be appreciated by someone standing amongst a powerful illusion. You simply have to be there... The Illusionist may change the perception that magic can't be captured on-screen. Read this from Canada's Movies Online...

According to an ages-old chemical philosophy known as alchemy, one can transform one element into another, such as a base metal into gold. Yet alchemic processes can and do happen in our day…. When Neil Burger first read Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Millhauser’s short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" (published in the collection The Barnum Museum), he was duly impressed with the story, but wasn’t quite certain how to go about instigating his alchemic transformation from story into film.

Burger conducted extensive research into magic, as well as the setting of the story: fin-de-siècle Vienna. "I read everything I could about the Hapsburgs, about the Secessionist movement, and about the magic from that time—both the illusions themselves and the social world of the magicians. Most of the tricks that ended up in the film are based on real illusions done at the time, and the characters I invented are also based on real people. I wanted it all to be as believable and honest as possible, all the more so since the story examines the idea of how we perceive truth and illusion…and blurs the boundary between those two concepts. If you’re going to exaggerate certain elements, to have it be dreamlike or surreal or uncanny, you have to make sure that the rest of it has a rock solid foundation in the period."

You must read the rest of this very informative and entertaining review at:

http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_9278.html