Helmsley Arts Centre

the arts for everyone in Ryedale

7,30pm

Cinema

The Illusionist

Directed by Sylvain Chomet
PG rated
running time: 83 minutes

The illusionist of the title - never referred to by name - is an aging stage performer at the tail end of the vaudeville era.  Despite the carefully honed skills of the stage magician and his numerous performing partners live stage performance is being quickly ushered out by the arrival of the motion picture and rock and roll and their days are clearly numbered. As the grand old stages where they once plied their trade closes to them, the illusionist and others are forced to move away from home, traveling from city to city, from venue to always-smaller venue as their livelihood is slowly stripped away.

From Paris to London he goes, from London to the Scottish Highlands where a show to celebrate the arrival of electricity in the local pub introduces the illusionist to Alice, a poor young girl who will change his life. Or, perhaps, more accurately we should say he will change hers.

Completely engrossed by his act and not at all understanding that it isn't actually magic at all, Alice follows the performer to Edinburgh and keeps house for him in exchange for a series of increasingly expensive gifts. The illusionist, for his part, harbors no ulterior motives towards the much younger girl - he is just thrilled to have his skills valued once again and, unable to break the news that he is not magic at all and that the money is running out he slowly pushes himself towards bankruptcy ...

Playing almost entirely without dialogue - and with what little there is being in mumbled French and some incomprehensible and possibly fictional Scottish dialect - The Illusionist is a wistful ode to the passing of time and the lost arts that time simply washes away....

"The level of craftsmanship here is astounding, every frame a bona fide work of art...." Todd Brown

"The Illusionist offers joy amid the sorrow, notably through its glorious recreation of Edinburgh – in the majestic winding lanes around the Castle, the open-backed buses tooling up and down Princes Street or the magnificent Victorian behemoth of Jenners department store...." Anthony Quinn, The Independent.

£4.90/concs £4.50