The Illusionist
18 Dec 2013
Director: Sylvain Chomet
UK, France
2010
80 min
Monsieur Tatischeff is an artisan illusionist trying to eke out a living at the end of the dying vaudeville era. While performing at a pub in the Scottish Highlands, he meets a simple young woman who is enthralled by his magic. She follows him to Edinburgh where they develop a familial relationship. She keeps house while he thanks her with increasingly lavish gifts that she believes he conjures out of thin air. Based on an unpublished script by Jacques Tati and told with luminous hand-drawn animation and minimal dialogue, The Illusionist is a story about characters at odds with a changing world, clinging to the familiar and turning a blind eye to inevitable truths.