Like its protagonists, two magicians engaged in a vengeful tug of war, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is illusory and narratively combative, fooling the viewer and fighting their attempts at unraveling its mystery. Told in the same fashion as Nolan's Memento, the film's narration is non-chronological, gradually unveiling all the pieces of its plot, thereby challenging viewers to determine the truth before it is actually revealed. In the midst of this complex and ensnaring web of partial truths and outright lies is an abundance of brilliant metaphors and allusions, that is to say phrases uttered by characters in certain contexts and that symbolize and foreshadow events in others.
The plot revolves around a series of vengeful acts in which two magicians, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, continually attempt to learn one another's techniques and sabotage one another's stage performances. As their bout progresses, it becomes more and more costly, starting off with the loss of appendages and ending with the loss of lives, although what sparked it was the unintended death of one of the pair's loved ones. Consequently, each of the two gradually becomes madder at the other and less considerate of their relationships with the people around them, all the while destroying themselves - both literally and figuratively. For example, in Angier's campaign against Borden, he breaks one of his legs and subsequently becomes dependent on a cane; pushes away his good friend and assistant, John Cutter, who quits because he himself suffered a gunshot wound to the arm as a result of getting involved in Angier's grudge; and dies...countless times. On the other hand, Borden loses two of his fingers, drives his wife to commit suicide, and winds up losing his life (well, at least one of them).
The events that propel this morbid bout forward are filled with equally morbid quotes that unpredictably and ingeniously allude to future occurrences. For example, at the funeral of Julia McCullough, Angier's wife, who died during the execution of a magic act and possibly due to Borden's negligence, Cutter relays how a sailor who had once drowned described drowning to him; he tells Angier that the sailor said, 'It was like going home,' which Angier ultimately responds to later on in the film by literally drowning himself in order to execute his ultimate magic trick, The Real Transported Man. Unfortunately for Angier, Cutter conveyed his recollection dishonestly, in order to spare him the pain of realizing how much his wife suffered in her final moments. Hence, each time that Angier fell through a trap door and into a tank of water, he suffered just as much as his wife did before he himself went home, all the while an oblivious copy of himself magically appeared at the back of the theater and joyfully received the praise of the crowd. Another clever illusion is what Angier says as his hired double receives the thunderous applaud of an audience as he himself resides in a secret compartment beneath a stage: No one cares about the man in the box. They care about the man who comes out on the other side. Little does he know, he's prophesying about the half of Borden who will spend his final days in prison - the box - where he will die, while his identical twin brother - the man who comes out on the other side - will live on to continue the life that they both (literally) shared.
Bringing this intelligently crafted story to life are talented actors such as Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and - of course - Michael Caine. Bale does a wonderful job of portraying a lower class Englishman, thanks to his natural English accent and his effortless conveyance of gruff. Jackman, who sports an Australian accent off set, convincingly feigns an American one and believably portrays an upper-class gentleman, demonstrating a wide range of acting-ability given his depiction of X-Men's not-so-elegant Wolverine. And Caine, no doubt due to his decades of experience in theater and film, as well as his age, fittingly portrays an adviser to the younger and foolish Angier. The performances of these three, as well as those of Scarlette Johanson and Rebecca Hall, create a darkly poetic experience conveyed through the deceptive world of magicians
10/10
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So, for those of you who have seen this film...
1. What do you think of it?
2. What position does it hold on your personal ranked list of films that you have seen?
3. How does it compare to other films directed by Christopher Nolan?
4. Which of the two Borden brothers do you think actually fathered Jess?
5. At what point did you figure out that there were actually two Bordens?
6. At what point did you figure out that Angier's machine was creating copies of him?
7. Do you think that Julia died because Borden negligently bound her hands using the wrong type of knot and that Borden was subsequently responsible for her death?
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