FILM - "The Prestige"

Forget the magic trick at the heart of The Prestige, “The Transported Man,” a trick that brings two rival London magicians to blows. Christopher Nolan’s new film—in which he is the great celluloid prestidigitator—pulls off a greater trick: “The Transported Audience.” For over two hours, Nolan sustains our imagination and curiosity: he makes his film into a magic trick. The first minute, a series of cryptic images voiced-over by Cutter (Michael Caine), explains the three-part trick, but the pledge still hooks us: what goes wrong in Rupert Angier’s final magic trick, and did Alfred Borden kill him? The subsequent act, the turn, is actually a series of turns, a feat accomplished through a clever narrative that uses the two rival magician’s journals to trace their fractious history. Even though we’re told to look for the secret, even though we know their magic isn’t—can’t be—real, we want so badly to be fooled, that the third part, the prestige, is smooth as silk.

Read on at [Film Monthly]