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Tuesday 20 May, 2008

The Prestige


Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts.

The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't.

The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back.

That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".

There are some movies which you can watch many times and each time you do, you notice something new and appreciate the movie one notch more. Prestige is one of those kinds for me. Each time I see it I realize I missed out on something , and this realization keeps me grounded on to every scene as though I am seeing it for the first time.

The first time I watched it, I was at the edge of my seat trying to follow the superb plot.

The next time I watched it, I knew the plot well but while I was running the plot in my head, I realized how fine and extra ordinary the performances given by each actor were. Like, when you watch closely you realize the difference in acting of the 2 ‘different’ characters portrayed by Christan Bale which is a brilliant feat. But what really tricks the audience into not noticing these finer and significant things in this movie is the magic of the movie itself-its plot. Its got its pledge, turn and prestige in the right places and happening at the right time. Being the complex movie that it is, the execution of the movie is soo good that you don’t feel lost between characters, situations, time and the performances.

Set in the nineteenth century in London when the magicians formed the crux of the entertainment industry. Its about the 2 central characters-

One a maverick(Alfred Borden)- who wants to break free from the traditional reams of the magic world and try tricks which are never tried, one who doesn’t shy away from experimenting on his ideas. The other a quintessential go-getter (Robert Robert) who wants to play dirty after he loses his wife in the middle of a magic act gone horribly wrong due to Alfred.

The entire movie is the never ending war between these 2 characters to prove their vengeance on each other, to prove the better magician in each of them, the self sacrifices each made to get the other down.

My favorite element of the movie apart from the plot itself is the narrative or the screenplay. Most of the movie is shown from Robert Robert ‘s point of view , but its not one sided though. Justice was done to bring out the good and bad shades in each character without being partial to portray it as how Robert see’s it. It’s generally very difficult a task to achieve something like this when the plot moves back and forth between time and between the prejudices of the characters at that particular point in time. You really can’t point your finger and say- yes I think Robert was right or Alfred was right, the director never gives you a chance to empathize with one particular character at any point in time. You know that each can go any lengths to get better than the other-so no one’s right and no ones wrong. So who then is the protagonist of the entire movie-again it falls down to the brilliant plot.

Good dialogues can really change the movie and this one has quite a number of them. Some of them want you to find out the real trick in the movie but you wont be able to figure it out soon, because you are not watching(or rather hearing) closely ;)

A mention must be made on the superb cast of the movie- Christan Bale is one gem of an actor and portrays the character soo earnestly that not once would you doubt the twin element involved in the entire movie ,till the last 5 minutes when the noose is let free .Hugh Jackman is superb in his quest to put Alfred down and take revenge and be proven as the better magician amongst the two. I would probably call this character foolish but without him the movie wouldn be any exciting as it turns out to be.

Enjoying this movie really boils down to this – ‘Are you watching closely?’ :)