The Illusionist
Sorry “Toy tale three,” the most shattering finishing to an lively movie you’ll see this century is the haunting coda to “The Illusionist,” Sylvain Chomet’s hand-drawn edition of an unproduced Jacques Tati script the French comic grasp wrote between “Mon Oncle” and “Playtime.” regarding the sensitive bond that forms among a threadbare magician and an orphan woman who believes his magic is actual, the story is notion by some Tati students to be his attempt at achieving out to the daughter he abandoned as an infant.
Controversy surrounded the film’s launch due to the fact, not simplest did Tati pick now not to make it himself (and otherwise never even publicly recounted the daughter he left at the back of), but the movie seems to keep to erase her existence. those are valid criticisms, however the film is so damn sad it seems to confront them head-on. while the magician sooner or later abandons the lady, as Tati had in actual existence, he leaves her a note that certainly reads: “Magicians do now not exist.” yes, that sound you pay attention is your coronary heart being ripped out of your chest. the sensation that follows is subtler, sadder even one way or the other, and but also hopeful: We nonetheless need illusions, in particular whilst we no longer consider in them.