Sylvain Chomet’s animated film The Illusionist (2010) is based on a script by Jacques Tati, the famous French director and master of live-action physical comedy. The film’s lead character, a magician, goes on a tour of the UK which takes him from London to Edinburgh. The magician is given Tati’s own original Slavic surname, Tatischeff. Physically, Tatischeff resembles Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s primary comic persona.
Tall, gangly, middle-aged and invariably leaving chaos in his wake, Monsieur Hulot might be called the original French version of Mr. Bean: both rely mainly on silent physical humour. But whereas Mr. Bean tends to create disruption in normal situations, Monsieur Hulot’s character highlights the absurdities that are already a part of everyday life. In Mon Oncle (1958), Monsieur Hulot attends a garden party in a self-consciously modernist bourgeois home: just behaving normally in this environment brings out its ridiculousness, from the house’s round windows which resemble staring eyes, to the pretentious fish fountain which malfunctions, to the patio stones which can only be negotiated through a complex choreography. In a bizarre moment of self-referentiality in The Illusionist, Tatischeff stumbles into a cinema where Mon Oncle is screening, and the cartoon character watches his live-action original on screen for a few moments.
Sylvain Chomet’s film is similar to Monsieur Hulot films insofar as there is very little dialogue, and much of its humour is based on small physical details or movements: the near-obscene fluttering of a Scotsman’s kilt; the perpetual grumpiness of the magician’s rabbit; a young girl’s attempt to walk in high heels. This affect could not have been achieved without a meticulous approach to animation, which is able to articulate such details without overemphasising them: too much stress would spoil the effect, which is supposed to be subtly humorous. Like Tati’s films, The Illusionist also highlights the contrast between the austere but honest WWII period which is ending, and the superficiality of modern 1950s life which has just begun. Tatischeff’s tricks no longer impress now in the era of foppishly glamorous rock and roll groups. Even in a remote country pub, Tatischeff witnesses the introduction of sterile modernity in the space of a single evening: the main source of entertainment shifts from live music and folk dancing, to the switching on and off of an electric light, to the standard songs belting out of a juke box, and bizarre new dance fads to go with them. As the audiences for Tatischeff’s classic magic shows evaporate, he unwillingly attempts to adapt to modern life: looking after the big American cars of the rich, or performing in a department store window, using his magic tricks to showcase the store’s products.
When Tatischeff takes pity on a down-at-heel chambermaid and buys her a new pair of shoes, there are two unintended results. First, he appears to gain a lifelong companion, as the chambermaid refuses to leave his side, even when he leaves the country inn for the big city. The unfortunate second result is that the slippers awaken the young girl’s sense of beauty and style: no longer satisfied with her simple country attire, she insistently points to the expensive, ladylike fashions in the shop windows of Edinburgh. This development may be seen as a case study of the new generation’s materialism, but it is also the natural self-consciousness that comes with growing up.
Ultimately, The Illusionist takes an unapologetically wistful and matter-of-fact view of the natural progression of the relationship between the older man and the young girl. Tatischeff’s indulgence towards the chambermaid is fatherly, but ultimately they abandon each other at the same moment: no longer willing to take on degrading jobs to finance the girl’s wardrobe, Tatischeff disappears, leaving a note with the severe message, ‘magicians don’t exist’. The chambermaid, meanwhile, has already found a young man to replace him as a companion.
