Sylvain Chomet’s hand-drawn animation of a previously unproduced Jacques Tati story is a delight in every way, in which the French film-maker pays homage to the great man by making him the illusionist of the title. He is unmistakably Tati - all elbows and angles, and, of course, distinctive bottom and nose.
Seeing his work drying up as the incipient youth culture is taking over theatres and music halls, the illusionist leaves France (Chomet’s change to the original story) and accepts a gig in a tiny Scottish town, where he meets a star-struck young girl who follows the magician to Edinburgh, where they share theatrical digs. It’s a curious coupling, and rather unsettling. Is he a father figure for her? Does she represent the domestic existence that life on the road has prevented him having? It’s never explained, but leads the illusionist to acts of ever-greater kindness that he cannot afford - buying her a beautiful pair of shoes she covets after seeing them in a shop window, for instance.
Every frame in this almost silent film is wonderfully evocative - Edinburgh never looked lovelier and we see why music hall died as the illusionist does some daft old business with an irascible rabbit, a hat and a pack of cards. But the real magic here is of the human kind, as the man and girl transform each other’s lives without ever trying. It’s a rather melancholic film and dares to leave us with an ambiguous ending, by which time anyone with a heart will be watching through tears.
The extras include an item on the painstaking work involved in making hand-drawn animation and an illuminating Q&A with Chomet at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which throws up some interesting nuggets. The director explains how Tati’s 1956 script was brought to life, and why an animator rather than a live-action film-maker was given the task; Tati’s daughter, guardian of her father’s estate, couldn’t bear to have another actor play the role he intended for himself. I did say it was melancholic.
Watch trailer for The Illusionist
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