The thing about magic tricks, is that magicians can perform amazing things like decapitating limbs and it looks so real, if you didn't know better, you would think it was so. Pulling objects out of thin air and making things disappear, no matter how simple, appears genuine to the viewer.
"The Illusionist" is one of the more recent movies in my well of infinitely wise movies. The movie centers on Eduard Abramovich, the son of a peasant cabinetmaker in Austria-Hungary. As a young boy, Eduard befriends Sophie, the Duchess von Teschen, whose parents have hired Mr. Abramovich as a cabinetmaker. As a teenager, Eduard meets a traveling magician along a road. The magician performs several tricks for him and then, according to various accounts, both the magician and the tree he was sitting under vanish. Eduard becomes obsessed with magic tricks after this and decides to travel the world.
Because they are forbidden to see each other, Eduard and Sophie meet in a secret hideout in the forest. Eduard gives Sophie a unique puzzle locket which, if twisted correctly will open to reveal the picture within. Eduard tells Sophie of his plans to go to China to learn more magic and Sophie promises to go with him. On the day that they are going to leave, however, the police come looking for Sophie. The two hide in the secret room and Sophie begs him to make them both disappear. Of course, he cannot do it and they are separated.
Eduard leaves his village to travel the world and perfect his magic. He arrives in Vienna 15 years later as Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton). In his first performance, Eisenheim talks of life by using his tricks. He manages to slow the speed of an orange while he is throwing it from one palm to another and to grow an orange tree in mere seconds. He meets Sophie (Jessica Biel) at his performance when she is volunteered by the Crown Prince as a reluctant participant in a trick. The trick involves Sophie standing before a mirror in a hooded cloak. Behind her mirrored reflection, appears a duplicate of her which beheads her reflection. A cloud of white (which represents a soul) comes floating up from the dead reflection and out of the mirror and Sophie silently faints.
The Crown Prince Leopold invites Eisenheim to perform before the greatest minds in Vienna at a private viewing. Using the Crown Prince's sword, he manifests the story of the sword Excalibur. Men from the audience come up and try to lift the sword but none can do it because as the story goes, only the rightful king can raise the sword and so, only with a slight tug, can Leopold himself claim the sword. Eisenheim learns that Sophie is going to marry the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). Sophie soon recognizes Eisenheim and they meet privately and make love.
After his humiliation of the Crown Prince during their private show, Eisenheim's show is shut out of Vienna. He and Sophie plan to flee the Empire together; but first Sophie reveals that Leopold is planning a coup d'etat to overthrow his Father, Franz Joseph I of Austria, while his engagement to her will win him the Hungarian half of the Empire. Eisenheim devises a way to free the Duchess von Teschen from her engagement and prevent the overthrowing of Franz Joseph I by creating new illusions at every turn.
Eisenheim buys a theatre and performs a new type of show by summoning spirits. Like the theme of this article, seeing is believing, the audience believes that Eisenheim is summoning real spirits.
I don't want to ruin the movie for you any further if you are going to see it, but suffice it to say that in the end, Eduard Abramovich/Eisenheim the Illusionist does manage to make himself and the love of his life, the Duchess von Teschen, disappear.
Of course Eisenheim states frequently to all the viewers of his majestic shows that everything is an illusion, but it makes you think, doesn't it? What you see is a tree growing before your eyes, but is that what is really happening? What you see is a handkerchief being thrown in the air and becoming a raven, but is that what is really happening?
Tsoof and Eden love to download full movies from the Internet.
