MYST Post #1: The Prestige

Everyone enjoys a good magic trick every now and then. It's just so entertaining witnessing something impossible in our own eyes. Think back to the past magic shows you've seen in your life and imagine the magicians that left you in awe. Of course they aren't really doing anything supernatural, but rather just playing tricks with your mind. This art has become so popular and even competitive that it has been a profession for centuries making magicians showcase their best tricks to an audience. A lot happens behind a single magic trick that you would never expect and many times, magicians will do whatever it takes to make their illusion a reality. How far do they go? Well the movie, The Prestige, shows you just what can really happen behind that curtain.

For those of you who have never even heard of this movie, above is the trailer. Set in the late 19th century, the movie is about two professional magicians whose partnership turns into a dangerous rivalry to one up each other in magic tricks and shows. These said magicians are played by Hugh Jackman (X-men series) and Christian Bale (Dark Knight trilogy). Michael Caine (Dark Knight trilogy) plays the helping engineer who designs the magic tricks, and Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers) plays the assisting mistress involved in a love triangle. The movie starts with a confusing yet climactic introduction showing the death of Robert Angier (Jackman). The suspect of his murder is none other than his arch-rival, Alfred Borden (Bale). From here Borden is tried and sentenced for the murder of Angier and spends his remaining days in his cell reading Angier's old diary. The story then continues as a flashback where Angier and Borden start as friendly co-working magicians. However, after one fatal magic trick gone wrong resulting in the death of Angier's wife, Angier and Borden begin a bitter rivalry that involves the sabotage of their shows to eventually their lives.

This film is from 2006, but I only just recently saw this. I'm kind of late to say this, but this movie is just straight up good. If you watched The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, or Memento and you liked them, then this movie will not disappoint you. If you knew anything about Christopher Nolan, the director of this and the movies I just mentioned, then you would probably expect this movie to be also complex yet ingenious at the same time. You see, I'm a fan of twists, and Christopher Nolan always does a good job of providing those plot twists in his movies and this particular piece is no exception. *SPOILERS ALERT* Some examples are in The Dark Knight Rises, when Batman turned out to actually survive and not sacrifice himself from the bomb. Or in Inception, when you find out that Dom Cobb might actually still be dreaming despite everything that just happened. Christopher Nolan does an exceptional job of leading the audience in one direction with the plot and then turn them around completely at any moment of the movie. Throughout this movie, he plays onto the idea of a twist and really makes a finale for an ending. You can tell that his experience with making twists really started to develop from this film and into his more recent ones.

Robert Angier

Alfred Borden

Another thing I liked about this movie is the cast. I thought that Jackman, Bale, Caine, etc. did very well to make the story more alive. I've been seeing a lot of Hugh Jackman recently, and I'm starting like him more and more as an actor. He has always played the part of Wolverine in the X-Men series pretty well, and now he is even nominated for best actor from Les Misérables. The Prestige has definitely been a boost in his career in my opinion since he showed that he was able to play such an emotional character in the film. I can also confidently say the same thing for Christian Bale too. Bale not only surprises me with his many accents in his movies, but he did a very good job of showing the dark side of his characters especially in Alfred Borden. Comparing him to this role as a mysterious magician to what I saw him as Batman and Bruce Wayne, he has clearly demonstrated his superior acting range.

The movie tended to be very dim to set a kind of mysterious mood for the audience. I like this effect since it is definitely the most appropriate kind of lighting for this particular story line. The movie also uses a lot of key lighting since character expression and dialogue is very crucial for this film. With this in mind, low-key lighting was used constantly throughout the movie using just enough filler light to display clear emotion in a dark and eerie setting. The camera angles are mostly close-up shots of the actors to again provide vivid details of their character. There was also use of the extreme long shot showing some particular landscapes of cities and industrial settings, and they also used long shots to show more detailed landscapes like a forest or a theater. Overall the camera angles and lighting kept the movie in suspense which is exactly what it needed.

Olivia Wenscombe

There was one scene in the movie that I believed was a key part in escalating the plot. In this scene, Alfred Borden is performing a solo show where he allegedly does the never-before-seen trick of a lifetime. The scene starts out showing Borden regularly performing his magic show and Angier in disguise to spy on his latest tricks. As a finale, Borden builds up suspense on the stage by showing two doors and a rubber ball. In between shots show Angier explaining what he saw to Olivia (Johansson) from this trick sometime after the show. Olivia asks Angier whether it was good, and Angier with an expression of awe can only respond that it was the best trick he had ever seen. Soon, you see Borden work his to one of the doors and enter it right after bouncing the ball towards the other one only to hear (not actually see yet) him come out of the other door. This particular scene progressed the story in making the rivalry even stronger making their tactics to outperform more extreme. The scene uses a lot of cinematic elements such as flashbacks back and forth, low-key lighting, dialogue, and visual context to make it come alive. As mentioned before, the angles and lighting used are consistent to help keep the character expression clear which definitely helped in showing Angier's amazement over Borden's trick. Also the way this scene was edited gave a unique style of mystery and suspense. At the end of the scene, you can safely assume Borden has transported from one door to the other however you don't actually see this. This adds a kind of mystery as to whether this trick was possible or whether the movie is waiting to reveal the trick.

This movie was very entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed watching every minute of it. I especially enjoyed those small subliminal messages of greed, obsession, and commitment that made the story as a whole much more meaningful. And of course, those twists in the movie really made my head turn. Even though I thought I knew what was going on, the movie kept shooting something new right back. You see, I can appreciate a movie that makes me think and uses clever details and styles to make its audience react the way they want, and that's exactly what this movie did. The only issue that I have with this movie is that it tended to be inconsistent with it's storyline moving from one time to another making it difficult to keep track of.  Also as the story progresses, you realize how fantastical and unrealistic the movie becomes which kind of disappointed me. Having said all that though, the plot was well-written, the acting was exceptional, and the editing was very impressive. Overall, I can confidently give this film a 8.5/10.