The Illusionist & other matters

[annwfyn]

I have to admit, while watching 'the Illusionist', I did feel as if I was watching a true magician at work. Over the course of 110 minutes, I saw Edward Norton suspend plausibility in mid air, saw the plot in half, and even making the acting disappear!

It was magic!

I think if I were to say I found this film laughably bad, I'd be understating the matter. Actually, no. I'd be spot on. At one particularly emotional moment, myself, jez and Ginnie all burst out laughing. I can't remember which moment it was. It may have been Rufus Sewell's moustache quivering.

This film was bad enough that I can't even write just one piece on 'what irritated me about this film', and have had to break it up into different sections.

The massacre of turn of the century political and social history: anachronism, thy name is Hollywood

• Why did Jessica Biel ride everywhere astride? I mean, in the flashback sequences, she is riding sidesaddle. I presume Jessica Biel doesn't know how to ride astride, but I'm fairly sure that a noblewoman in 19th century Austria was expected to ride like a lady. You know, folk beliefs about riding astride sexually stimulating women, and/or taking their virginity and all.



• Am I alone in finding it slightly implausible that a sexually inexperienced virgin in her mid twenties would leap into bed with a long lost childhood sweetheart, fifteen minutes after her first kiss? Or, indeed, that a 19th century aristocrat and potential bride for the Crown Prince would be anything other than a virgin at this point?



• Why did Jessica Biel wear trousers quite as often as she did? I'm sure that wasn't considered appropriate until after WW1 at the earliest?



• Why did Edward Norton's character never address the Crown Prince of Austria by his title, or in fact, offer any show of respect? And why did no one comment on this? I'm sure that when being introduced to royalty, one is meant to at least produce a token 'your highness'!



• I'll mostly ignore the very very shoddy political backplot, and simply assume that somewhere in the background, a little cluster of German, French and British spies are sitting there murmuring "what is he doing? Why is he so fixated on the Hungarians? Why isn't he paying any attention to every other major power in Europe? Has his father not told him about the treaties?"



• How did the childhood sweethearts get together in the first place? Why was Jessica Biel not properly chaperoned from the start? I've read accounts of how tightly looked after aristocratic girls were as late as the 1920s. I don't believe that no one noticed her roaming the woods, snogging the local carpenter's son, until she was on the verge of running away with him. At least the story could have cobbled together some plausible situation for them to meet and get to know each other in the first place - you know - him working on something in the courtyard of her house? Anything other than 'they ran into each other in the street one day and she followed him home'.

The magic: where was it?

• Could the film makers not have performed some actual stage magic/illusions? Did they really need to use solid CGI? The characters repeated often enough 'it's all illusion', ignoring the fact that half the stunts that were being pulled were both impossible, and blatantly used 21st century special effects. I was hoping for ages that the twist was that he was a real magician. Sadly, I was wrong. The film makers were just lazy.



• Jessica Biel's locket! Jessica Biel's character wears a locket, made out of wood, with one of those clever mechanisms whereby you have to twist it around to open it.Inside it, she carries a picture of Edward Norton's younger, mullet clad head. For some obscure reason, the film makers insist on the picture taking up the central part of the locket. Which it can't. It's impossible.
  
  Youtube, bless them, actually have a clip up here showing how this locket works.
  
  The picture would have to be at the side of the locket in order to work. But the film makers don't want that, so instead they simply stomp on the laws of physics a bit, have two lockets, repeatedly use two shots where there should be one shot in order to cover this up, and expect the audience not to notice.
  
  If they cheat on that basic a level, why the hell should I believe that the rest of Edward Norton's alleged tricks and illusions are any more honest?



• Jessica Biel's faked death. Am I alone in being of the opinion that she should have drowned during that? As far as I can tell, from the complicated flashback sequence, she faked the evidence implicating the Crown Prince (why they wanted to do this is a bit of a mystery to me), and then went down to the river, took some kind of potion to send her into a Juliet style trance, and through herself in the river, where Edward Norton could conveniently find her and revive her later.
  
  So. Unconscious girl in river? What were the odds of a current turning her over and dragging her down stream underwater? Or even just the riverwater repeatedly flowing over her nose and mouth as she hung off that convenient branch, also drowning her? She was drugged, not 'no longer in need of oxygen'. How did she live?



• How did their frame up of the Crown Prince even work? It totally relied on a locket and a single gemstone being thrown into some straw in a stables, and still being there weeks later. That should not have happened. The stables should have been mucked out (and from the sparkly level of cleanliness of the straw and tiles, they blatantly were) and the locket and gemstone thrown out with the crappy old straw. If they weren't, the a large horse should have trampled on and broken the locket, and definitely driven both locket and gemstone into the nice underlayer of soggy straw, horse sh*t, and mud that makes up the underside of any horse's stable.



• What the hell happened with Jessica Biel's funeral? This is a serious Austrian aristocrat? Did no one ask what happened to the body after the mysterious man in the black suit that claimed to be a family doctor wandered away with it? Was he even a doctor? Was there some kind of extra trickery with a coffin, or did no one notice and/or care?



• The showmanship of all the magic shows was lousy. I'm entirely convinced that Edward Norton came back to Vienna after being laughed out of London by audiences who were used to seeing Hugh Jackman performing in 'the Prestige', and scorned 'one man sits on a chair in his shirt sleeves and does magic' style of performance.



• What the hell was the point of the mysterious chinamen, anyway?

The acting, the story, the goddamn melodrama!

• Who really meets the love of their life at the age of 13 and then yearns for ever? I remember chatting to people about this recently. People grow up. People change. And I suspect that the childhood sweethearts in this film are going to get a shock to their systems when they spend some time together and realise how little they actually know about each other!



• Why on earth did Edward Norton and Jessica Biel go to so much effort setting up the Crown Prince for murder? I understood why they needed to fake Jessica Biel's death in order to get her away from the situation she was in, but the Crown Prince hadn't really done anything to either of them. He slapped Jessica Biel once, when he found out that his fiancee had been cheating on him, which may not be admirable, but isn't that evil. He had apparently been perfectly nice to her before then. Maybe it was meant to show a rather nasty possessive and vengeful side to Edward Norton ("no one touches my woman"), but why did Jessica go along with it? It just seemed unnecessarily vicious.



• Was I the only one who felt they really screwed over the perfectly nice and sympathetic police chief? At the end of the film he had lost his job - he had lost everything. And he had chosen to do that to bring in a murderer. At the end it becomes apparent that this is not the case. He lost everything, for absolutely no real reason other than to help an elopement. He seems to not be terribly bothered by this, which I thought was excessively sainted, as I would have been distinctly peeved in his shoes.



• Why on earth didn't the sentry on guard at the hunting lodge do something when Jessica Biel really obviously rode past, hanging off the neck of her horse, dripping blood? It was very nice and melodramatic, but surely a sensible sentry would have said 'you seem to be injured, your grace' and helped her off her horse, entirely screwed up the entire plot.



• There were a variety of other points of irritation. The very very melodramatic and hackneyed dialogue made me want to cry. I also have to mention a point raised by either jez or Ginnie - the film originally switched to sepia shades to indicate a flashback. Why on earth did it then insist on staying in those same tones when it caught up with the present? I also found the camerawork unnecessarily prone to telegraphing what was going to happen. I knew the Prince's alleged murder of the Duchess was a set up when the camera suddenly, and with no reason, switched to the point of view of a manservant looking out of a window, and seeing nothing, having been taking an up close stance all the way through. It was just clumsy!

I also found a summary of the short story that 'the Illusionist' is based on, which appears to be rather different from the film, and noticeably more interesting. I'm wondering if Edward Norton thought that that was the story he was signing up for when he agreed to do the film. It must have been quite disappointing to find out what the script writers had done when he turned up on set!

In other news, I mentioned a few days ago that I've been tired, wobbly, and brain dead lately. It appears that I'm not pregnant, as quite a few people suggested (I was pretty certain that I wasn't), but am looking thoughtfully at my diet. cairmen suggested that I might be a tad on the anaemic side. After peering at my partially white fingernails, I am inclined to suspect that he may have a point. I'm hopefully going to see the doctor this afternoon for a chat, but in the interim I'm trying to get a little bit more iron into my diet.

This, by the way, has been noticeably made harder by the fact that I seem to have lost the ability to eat meat. Now, I've never been vegetarian. In fact, I've always been very firmly a meat eater, despite an inordinate amount of vegetarianism in my upbringing. However, it appears that over the last couple of months (maybe longer) this has changed somewhat, in that I seem to have stopped eating meat entirely. I still eat the stuff if someone cooks it and puts it in front of me, but I no longer order it in restaurants, I don't cook it (other than small bits of chopped bacon in pasta) and I just haven't been eating the stuff.

This may also explain my fading a tad.

I went out for lunch yesterday with pierot, quite determined to get some steak, or some solid red meat. I sat in Arbuckles, staring at the menu, feeling strangely scared at the thought of a great lump of meat, and entirely unconvinced I could digest it. I ordered chicken caesar salad in the end, which was very nice, but was a surprising amount of effort.

Comments

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Iron tablets, baybee.

I am now so very glad I saw School For Scoundrels rather than The Illusionist!

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

It's always Iron. Take iron pills and folic acid and then go watch the Prestige again - lovely film - gave me chills.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The Prestige was glorious and is one of my favourite films ever. I am waiting for the DVD release really quite eagarly!

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I watched it on the flight back from Hong Kong last week. I was curled up in my chair muttering "no, no, no, no, NO!" as I could see the end coming. Such a good film.

On the topic of the prestige....

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=anwZvkXRMMs

The Prestige and Harry Potter. Together at last!

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

And start with lamb, something well cooked, maybe in a sauce to disguise it. Eat a small amount and work your way up... this is why barbecues were invented after all.

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

I always thought that partially white fingernails signified not enough calcium. May be completely wrong on that, but nobody (who wasn't lactose intolerant) ever did badly by drinking more milk.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It isn't white flecks in the nails. You know how when you press down on your thumbnail the pink bit underneath goes white, for just a minute? My thumbnail looks like that most of the time atm.

To be honest, it is a shonky self diagnosis, and may well be wrong, and I need to see a doctor, but I thought getting some more iron into my diet can't hurt.

[blueberrycowboy.livejournal.com]

From my (admittedly somewhat amateur) medical knowledge, "cap refill" as the doctors call it, is usually a good indicator of someone's circulation, blood pressure etc. It can indicate anaemia, I think, so boosting your iron can't hurt. If this still doesn't fix the problem, then a doctor's appointment would be worthwhile.

[blueberrycowboy.livejournal.com]

Ah, from Wikipedia:

"Anemia goes undetected in many people, and symptoms can be vague. Most commonly, people with anemia report a feeling of weakness or fatigue, general malaise and sometimes a poor concentration. People with more severe anemia often report dyspnea (shortness of breath) on exertion. Very severe anemia prompts the body to compensate by increasing cardiac output, leading to palpitations and sweatiness, and to heart failure.

Pallor (pale skin, mucosal linings and nail beds) is often a useful diagnostic sign in moderate or severe anaemia, but it is not always apparent."

[blueberrycowboy.livejournal.com]

And don't let the "severe anemia" bit worry you. I think you'd be more aware of it if that was the case. :)

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

*nods* I press mine & there's virtually no colour change, and I've been very tired a lot of the time recently - surprise surprise, I'm going vegan...

Iron tablets for me too this weekend I think!

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that things like eggs and oily fish are also reasonably high in iron...I'd be wary of the dark green veg (spinach, etc) people often jump to suggest, because the oxalic acid in it can end up absorbing it all during digestion - but eggs & fish are your friends.

Personally, I'll merrily fry up liver if I'm feeling low on iron - but if you're finding it a bit difficult to stomach the idea of meat, then offal is probably a step too far. (If it doesn't set off your mental stomach, though - cut into thin strips, dip into flour, fry very quickly and eat immediately - the reason most people don't like liver is because they cook it too much, and/or leave it sitting rather than eating it straight away! Tis rather good with fried onions and mushrooms, but cook those beforehand)

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

Ah - not good for me then, given that I'm not going to go eat either fish or eggs now. I think supplements are the way forward :(

Being veggie

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

Glad you're on the way to a diagnosis hon but I really don't think that lack of meat would cause it.

I myself am vegetarian (since 3 years now) and I have not even had a cold for a year and a half. As everyone else in the office drops with various illnesses I'm always the one left standing. A colleague commented that I must be 'very robust indeed' when I was the only one in my team of eight not to have the lergie one time. So from my experience being a veggie actually makes you MORE healthy not less.

As sea of flame says eggs, fish and dark green veg are really good - I eat a lot of all three of those -add cheese, lots of different veg and a few carbs and that pretty much describes my diet. Popeye was right about spinach you know!

You could be veggie and have good iron levels (I'm not aware of any issues with mine) as long as you eat those types of foods sea of flame suggests and maybe also pop a good multivit.

Sorry to make this point but it is really annoying as a veggie when loads of people tell you that it isn't a healthy lifestyle and you know damn well that your immune system is better than most meat eaters!

Re: Being veggie

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think vegetarianism is unhealthy at all! Both my sisters are veggie and I've known a lot. It's just that I know red meat is one of the easiest ways to get iron into your system, and currently the way my body is reacting seems to suggest that I'm not getting enough, one way or another.

[adze.livejournal.com]

Well, I enjoyed the movie.