The Prestige

The Prestige (****)

Off the heels of directing the excellent Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan directed The Prestige, a film with a very different subject, but which not only has the same dark visuals, but is equally enticing. The film follows magicians in 1890s London, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who are somewhat different in technique, but are both at the top of their profession. Jackman's character has mastered the acting and the showmanship required to hook an audience, while Christian Bale's character has mastered the actual innerworkings of the illusions, in part because of his total devotion to his craft.

The two men are connected by a man named Cutter, played by the always ridiculously cool Michael Caine, who serves as a mentor and maybe a bit of a father figure to both of them. An incident occurs causing the illusionists to dispise each other. They engage in a riviarly where each sabotage's the other's performances, in part to physically hurt the other, and in part to show their superiority in sleight of hand. The rivialry comes to a head when Christian Bale's character, Alfred Borden, debuts his "The Transported Man" trick, where he is seemingly able to walk through a door and walk through another on the opposite side of the stage within a fraction of a second. Robert Angier, Jackman's character, becomes obsessed with the seemingly flawless illusion, dismissing Cutter's claim that the man who emerges from the second door is simply an excellent body double.

Angier's obessive quest for the secret of the illusion leads him across the pond to America, and more specifcally to Colorado Springs. It is against this snowy backdrop that Nolan displays some hauntingly beautiful visuals, which represent the very best of the film's overall excellent cinematography. Angier travels to Colorado to visit the eccentric scientist Nikola Tesla, played by the homo superior himself, David Bowie. Angier presses him about the possibilities of teleportation, convinced that Borden's illusion is rooted in science, and not just deception. It is here that the film takes a turn towards science fiction. This could've been extremely campy and ruined the entire film, but Nolan's direction and the screenplay (which was written by Nolan and his brother, Johnathan) gives it a sense of legitimacy and makes it all work.

At the beginning of the film, Cutter explains in a voice over that a magic trick consists of three parts: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. These scenes with Tesla would certainly represent the film's "turn" if it can be said to have one. What began as a film about two men in a professional and personal rivalry, becomes a deeply philosophical film with much more universal themes. The film's "prestige" then, is its revealing ending, which again, could have played out in a very B-movie way, but is handled excellently. Some people probably won't be thrown off by the end reveal (I don't consider myself that good at guessing plots before they play out and I partially predicted the events of the ending correctly, though I didn't have an explanation for them) but I think most everyone will find it compelling regardless.

Simply, The Prestige is a film which, on the surface follows a figurative chess match between two bitter rivals, and on quite another level provides a study of depecption and of human nature. Either way you choose to look at it, it is exellent, and anyone who felt what Nolan did for Batman was a breath of fresh air for the character will certainly love his latest work.

--EK