THE ILLUSIONIST

Writer/director Neil Burger's film, "The Illusionist" starring Edward Norton as a 19th Century magician who called himself Eisenheim, is a love story (originally a short story by Steven Millhauser) about two people of different classes: One, a peasant, the other, royalty. A boy and a girl meet secretly; they are torn apart, and meet again a decade and a half later. The boy has become a famous illusionist after traveling to Russia, India, the Orient, and Asia Minor. The girl, Sophie (Jessica Biel), a Princess, engaged to insouciant, spoiled Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) of Austria. "The Illusionist" is set in Vienna. Cinematographer Dick Pope filmed it in and around Prague. He used soft, sepia-like tones so that each scene appears as an old photograph with the burnished look of antique silver. Phillip Glass composed the haunting, perfect, score. His minimilist loops heighten the suspense; the rest of the time, his music flows along beautifully in the background, like the Danube.

The film opens with Eisenheim, in shirtsleeves and vest, sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the stage,staring out at the audience. Someone shouts, "It is her!" Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) has his officers arrest Eisenheim for "threats against the Empire." Chief Inspector Uhl unobtrusively narrates the mystery of the man called Eisenheim. Giamatti has graduated from schlub roles ("American Splendor" and "Sideways") appearing as Russell Crowe's manager in "Cinderella Man" and now, as Uhl. In a flashback, Uhl begins his voiceover as a scene unfolds of Eisenheim as a boy named Antoine. coming across a strange old man, dressed in black, wearing a black, flat brim hat, sitting under a tree in the middle of a field. He enchants the boy by plucking a frog from the boy's ear, then transforming a long-stemmed rose into a flying flute. The man vanishes and then, the tree, right before the boy's eyes. Antoine is hooked.

When he andthe girl, Sophie, get together secretly, in a hay-filled outbuilding on a farm, he shows her tricks he has taught himself. They are found out. Sophie's parents send their guards to take her away. Still, as the years pass, they manage to sneak away to see each other. He gives her a picture of himself in a tiny locket and shows her how to open the intricate gift. Again they are caught and separated, permanently. Yet we know they'll find each other again. The how, when, and where keep us engaged.

A decade and a half pass. Antoine returns to Vienna as the famous illusionist, Eisenheim, who, his MC/manager, says can bend time, warp space, and cheat death. With Crown Prince Leopold in the audience, he executes a few mind-blowing tricks involving a borrowed handkerchief, a couple of butterflies, an orange seed he plants, which, within seconds, grows into a small tree bearing fruit. Eisenheim then speaks of "the soul and death." He will demonstrate but needs a volunteer from the audience. The Prince offers up Sophie. Eisenheim recognizes her, but doesn't let on. The trick is performed with a cloak, a sword, and Sophie, and, yes, smoke and mirrors. Later, she tells Eisenheim she's engaged to the Prince.

Wishing to show Eisenheim as a fraud, the Prince invites him to his castle to perform before invited guests. But the tables are turned. Humiliated, the prince wants Chief Inspector Uhl to "shut him down!" The conflict grows. Uhl is a social climber, who wants to stay in the prince's good graces, still he's fascinated by Eisenheim, as is the whole Viennese population. It is said that he can conjure souls from the dead. We in the movie audience become his audience as though we're witnessing his illusions first hand. As these conjured souls appear, we wonder, how does he do it? Of course, in film, one can do anything; but this is turn of the 20th Century Vienna and magicians are performing all over the world. Recall that during this time, spiritualism was the rage. Europeans traveled to India to study with Yogis. They wrote books about astral vision and traveling on the astral plane. Seances were held. Many believed that Mediums could call up the dead, coax them to speak to loved ones.

Outside of the fact that Norton is playing a magician, his understated acting is mesmerizing, Jessica Biel is radiant. In the prince's private chambers Rufus Sewell plays him with the physicality of a lout, which he is, like one of Sadam Hussein's sons, Uday. There is a rumor that Prince Leopold had tossed a woman he was seeing off a bridge to hide the bruises she'd sustained when he'd beaten her. The prince ruins Eisenheim's life. He loses everything, leaves Vienna and returns with nothing. And here's where the movie picks up the scene we saw at the beginning. What Eisenheim does to cause someone (the Prince, incognito) to shout is to conjure the spirit of Sophie. Uhl and his men arrest him and run him out of town. Within the film is a mystery worthy of Sir Conan Doyle. Uhl intends to unlock it. Is Sophie really dead? Who killed her?

Uhl tails a man in a heavy beard, hat, overcoat to the train station. Then, in his mind's eye, all the pieces fall together. revealing a plot as intricate as the workings of the tiny locket Antoine had given to Sophie when they were young. Giamatti's transformation of the character of Uhl from a ponderous, serious-minded inspector to a joyful, enlightened being, is marvelous. The film ends on a scene M. Night Shyamalan would envy.

Entertainment Weekly included "The Illusionist" as number one on its Top Ten Musts for this week. Though it opened in only 51 theatres across the country, "it scored surprisingly strong," the best showing in EW's top 20 films, at no. 19. It is playing in San Francisco at the Balboa, Loew's Metreon, and Century 20 in Daly City. When there's so much doo-doo out there: "SoaP," "Fried Worms," etc., a film like "The Illusionist" makes us believe that all is not lost. Of course it's an indie film shot in Europe with few known stars (Norton, Biel, Giamatti, and Sewell) a huge Eastern European cast and crew, extras, and stuntpersons.