THE PRESTIGE

THE PRESTIGE

Illusion. Sleight Of Hand. Legerdemain. Misdirection. Leading the audience to think or look in one direction while the magician performs the switch or trick or deception in places he KNOWS you're NOT looking bcause he has successfully misdirected your attention elsewhere. It is the basic building block of a conjuring trick.

Successful mystery writers like Agatha Christie practiced such deceptive sleight of hand writing for decades, engaging the reader in deception, making them look at the butler while it was the vicar's wife who was up to mischief.

Today's master practicioner of twisty narratives in books,Jeffery Deaver, so enjoys pulling the rug out from under you, one is liable to experience a concussion from having fallen on ones' back once too often as yet another "conjuring" narrative trick is revelaed.

In films, M.Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" is still the best narrative trick, the shock ending not only knocking you backwards with the reveal, but it's flash-recap of all that took place before also slyly telling you that "Hey, the clues were all there..but you just weren't paying attention" and following at a close second is Christopher Nolan's "Memento", a narrative trickery based on the unreliability of one's memory compounded by it's reverse-order telling of the tale.

Since Nolan's latest flick opens with a voice-over saying "Are you watching closely?" , expect to be misled, deceived and obfuscated by it's diabolically delicious tale of 2 duelling magicians in early 20th-century England.

The 2 conjurors, Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden(Christian Bale) are put on a collision course in professional rivalry when the former blames the latter for the death of his wife in a performance gone horribly wrong.

As each tries to upstage the other( and engage in some very unprofessional sabotaging of the others performance), hatred spirals into obsession especially on the part of Angier when he feels he must, at all cost, find out the secret behind Borden's incredible Transported Man trick, disappearing and then re-appearing somewhere else. It's an obsession that has him "pimping" his lover cum assistant Olive ( a rather plastic Scarlett Johansson) to Borden in a bid to find out his secret, a ruse that back fires when she falls for the latter (On a side note, in these liberated times, why do film makers still think it's engaging to have a female character,supposedly the heroine, flit from one man's bed to another in rapid succession? Doesn't work guys. See Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane from the Spidey flicks and more specifically Kate Beckinsale's nurse in Pearl Harbor).

Angier also travels to Colorado to meet the Engineering whiz behind Borden's famous act, the renowned scientist Nikolai Tesla( a terrific David Bowie) , in a bid to find answers. And here Nolan sets up a similar rivalry between Tesla and that other great scientific mind of that time, Thomas Edison, mischieviously suggesting that rivalry between 2 great minds in a similar field is a given. But there are differences. While Tesla and Edison were possibly equals in the genious department, our battling magicians are not. Borden is clearly the better magician with Angier being the better showman. Borden is cold and calculating while Angier is obsessive. As Tesla warns Angier, "No good can come of this" and he and we know the movie is hurtling towards an ending that is anything but happy. But it's the ride Nolan takes you on that ensures you're strapped in for the full duration.Complemented with powerful performances by the 2 leads, ably supported by the ever reliable Michael Caine, a peek into the world of magic and a narrative arc choc-a-bloc of tricks(like Memento Nolan juggles timelines like the 3rd unseen conjuror of this tale), The Prestige is a must see. WATCH CLOSELY now.....

I READ......

Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap

A collection of short stories set in Thailand. Gentle snap-shots of a Thailand we don't often see or hear about elevate this collection. Still,one wishes for some resolution to the stories, be it a son's journey with his mother before she goes blind or a Cock Fighter's fued with a local bully. It would have made the tales sting with the spice of a tom yam instead of going down gently like Green Curry.

ALSO SAW....

BLACK RAIN

This 1989 Ridley Scott actioner, remastered on DVD still packs a wallop, thanks to great atmospeheric photography and well choreographed action scenes.

CURRENTLY READING...

THE PRESTIGE BY CHRISTOPHER PRIEST