Abracadabra

Some days bring in such pleasant surprises, it becomes difficult to believe. This Saturday, I chanced upon a movie called 'The Prestige' and I am still in awe of it. It was a lonely saturday evening and I was resenting it. I wanted to go out and have fun but all my acquaintances were seemingly busy. 'The Prestige' was stored on my laptop since last few days but I hadn't been too keen on spending anytime on it. That day, I almost ran out of options. I reluctantly lied down on the couch, rested the laptop on my knees and started the movie.

The dialogues with heavy Brit accent are a little difficult to grasp sometimes. I had to struggle for a few minutes initially but as the tempo built up gradually, I sank in the movie.

It starts with a beautifully scripted note, delivered masterfully by Michael caine,

"........Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it because you're not really looking. You don't really want to know the secret... You want to be fooled."

How perfectly delivered...and how nicely filmed. A pretty girl clapping while Cutter lets the bird fly out of his hand...he must have certainly muttered to the bird...
'Go...amaze my audience.....embrace them in your wings and take them to the enchanting journey of fiction....go..'

I am not a big movie buff and may be thats the reason I hadn't seen these actors in more than one movie before and all of them had been the disapointing ones....Hugh Jackman in 'Swordfish', Michael Caine in 'Miss congeniality' and Scarlette Johansson in 'Lost in Translation'. (May be I was just unfortunate to pick up the wrong
flicks). Anyway, they come up superbly in 'The Prestige'. What intensity, what face expressions, what dialogue delivery....I have to say again...I am still in awe of it. I would never forget the frustration of a loser that prevails on the face of Robert Angier and a true winner's resignation rooted in Alfred Borden. Things keep changing though and they keep exchanging the winner's crown in the due course but the general air is never let go. The rivalry of the magicians has been perfectly implanted.

"....But you wouldn't clap yet....", because The great performances by the actors is just one aspect. If there is somebody who deserves most heart felt praises and who makes me look for adjectives, its Mr. Christofer Nolan. How can somebody deliver 'Memento' and 'Prestige' in one lifetime ? Not that he is the only one to deliver more than one wonder in life but I gotta stand up and clap everytime I bump into somebody like him.

The movie ends, no great mysteries revealed, nothing told that you didn't already know but you watch the movie till the last scene with a bated breath. Thats the beauty of the movie. Its a relatively easier task (probably) to construct a web of mysteries and then resolve it at the end. Its, however, a different thing altogether to leave a little to guess yet make the audience wait till the end to be told the truth, feeling the same thrill and chill.

The movie starts and ends with almost the same lines. "You don't really want to know the secret... You want to be fooled..." I am sure they are not just meant for the description of what a PRESTIGE is, they are also some not-too-serious paper pebbles hurled towards the audience. Trying to invoke a few thoughts...doesn't take a huge effrot to understand what...? Its just a matter of "Are You watching closely...??? "

The magic of the movie perfectly embodies Alfred Borden's lines
"The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything..." The movie is certainly about presentation more than anything else. and I am sure, on this aspect, Nolan himself wouldn't have thought he was going to create such a masterpiece, realizing another line from the script...
"Man's reach exceeds his imagination"....It certainly did....