If your only notion of a French cartoon is the smooching skunk Pepe Le Pew, wait until you get a whiff of the refinement of “The Illusionist.” As far from “Loony Tunes” high camp as you can get, this evocative tale of a stage magician’s vanishing way of life in late-1950s Europe deserves the Oscar nomination it received. Like Pixar’s high-energy, computer-generated blockbuster “Toy Story 3,” its biggest competition in this year’s best animated feature film category, “The Illusionist” has tremendous heart. But the similarities end there. Today’s low-key specialty piece is told through gorgeous traditional “cel” (hand-drawn) animation and relies on almost no verbal dialogue — though there is profound unspoken communication.
| If you go | |
| ‘The Illusionist’ | |
| 4 out of 5 Stars | |
| Vocal Actors: Jean-Claude Donda, Eilidh Rankin | |
| Director: Sylvain Chomet | |
| Rated PG for thematic elements and smoking. | |
| Running Time: 80 minutes | |
Adapted from a script by Jacques Tati, the late French filmmaker, “The Illusionist” comes off the easel of his fellow countryman. Sylvain Chomet is the director, writer, animator and musician behind one of the most witty and original feature cartoons of the last decade, 2003’s “The Triplets of Belleville.”
He brings a more melancholy mood and deliberate pace to his latest, a story still tempered by moments of gentle human comedy about an elderly title protagonist. He and his eventual surrogate daughter Alice make an unlikely little family fending off loneliness together.
Chomet uses the declining career fortunes of the illusionist, a dignified French variety act entertainer about to become obsolete, to show how Western culture changed in the mid-20th century. As the movie progresses, a Beatlesesque rock ‘n’ roll act and audiences of screaming girls usurp his vaudevillian venues. They represent the coming encroachment of modern-style popular culture and the end of an era. The fates of his trouper cohorts — a ventriloquist, a clown, a trio of high-wire gymnasts — add color and deep pathos.
Though a vocal cast is credited, including Jean-Claude Donda as the magician and Eilidh Rankin as Alice, there are so few words uttered here that subtitles aren’t even required.
But “the Illusionist” speaks in a different way. Chomet appoints the film with period landscapes that capture with dramatic beauty a Paris, London, Edinburgh and Scottish highlands out of our dreams. You can feel the artist’s love for these places through his images. And he makes us love and feel for his characters just as much.
