Viraj's Weblog

Today I got to see an advance screening of The Illusionist with a discussion with the director afterwards. This movie stars Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti, both incredible actors. The movie was brilliant and I loved it. The music was by Philip Glass, who is an amazing composer. I love every movie he does music for because the music really becomes the star of such movies. Our screening was a DVD projected on a wall, and I definitely would like to catch this in the theatres. The scenes are beautifully done.

This movie is about, well, illusions. Norton plays a magician whose acts become very controversial for his time. You can never tell whether Norton has supernatural powers or not, and as the director confirmed afterwards, this is an important theme of the movie. We may witness events that challenge our reason, that make us wonder, could the illusion be real? How does such a conflict with our mind manifest itself, how does it change our behavior and reactions? It's almost like such events trigger the primitive instinct in us, the embrace of that which is unknowable.