You probably noticed that almost every review praises this film's impressive visuals but gives it mediocre to mostly meh marks on the story. I'm going to focus on the story since nobody else has really covered why it fails (and I wish I had been warned).
"L'illusioniste" is loosely based on a screenplay written, but never produced, by legendary French comedian Jacques Tati in 1956. It tells the tale of a down-on-his-luck magician who meets a young girl and spends every last sou trying to keep her happy. But although Tati's version was full of cleverness and wit to keep things fresh, here Chomet's adaptation is pure sentimentality. After a while it gets tired and bland, as we wonder how many more scenes we can endure of the haggard old man being down on his luck, exploited and just plain sad.
I'll quote Tati's biographer, David Bellos, who was considerably more brutal than me: "The film is a disaster ... The great disappointment for me and I think for all viewers is that what Chomet does with the material is... well, nothing. The story he tells is no more than the sketchily sentimental plotline of L'Illusionniste. It's really very sad. All that artistry, all that effort, and all that money... for this."
I wouldn't call this film "a disaster," but I agree with the rest. Tati's vision is presented here as a melancholy pity party for the main character. The result is a string of clichés which, if not for the glorious animation, would have prompted me to fast forward to the end. Oddly, my favorite scenes were the ones where the story departed from sappy sentimentality and picked away at the darker side of failure: a clown's alcoholism and suicidal impulses, a ventriloquist's spiral into depression after he sells his dummy. These are the scenes where sentimentality took a break and gave us some tension and food for thought.
But then we're immediately back to the magician working 3 different jobs to afford fancy clothes for the girl, back to his perpetual slouching, droopy eyes and sad face.
"L'illusioniste" is loosely based on a screenplay written, but never produced, by legendary French comedian Jacques Tati in 1956. It tells the tale of a down-on-his-luck magician who meets a young girl and spends every last sou trying to keep her happy. But although Tati's version was full of cleverness and wit to keep things fresh, here Chomet's adaptation is pure sentimentality. After a while it gets tired and bland, as we wonder how many more scenes we can endure of the haggard old man being down on his luck, exploited and just plain sad.
I'll quote Tati's biographer, David Bellos, who was considerably more brutal than me: "The film is a disaster ... The great disappointment for me and I think for all viewers is that what Chomet does with the material is... well, nothing. The story he tells is no more than the sketchily sentimental plotline of L'Illusionniste. It's really very sad. All that artistry, all that effort, and all that money... for this."
I wouldn't call this film "a disaster," but I agree with the rest. Tati's vision is presented here as a melancholy pity party for the main character. The result is a string of clichés which, if not for the glorious animation, would have prompted me to fast forward to the end. Oddly, my favorite scenes were the ones where the story departed from sappy sentimentality and picked away at the darker side of failure: a clown's alcoholism and suicidal impulses, a ventriloquist's spiral into depression after he sells his dummy. These are the scenes where sentimentality took a break and gave us some tension and food for thought.
But then we're immediately back to the magician working 3 different jobs to afford fancy clothes for the girl, back to his perpetual slouching, droopy eyes and sad face.