Trailer for Chomet's 'Illusionist'; A Certain Animated Oscar Contender
I forgot it earlier, but that oversight has been remedied
Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist debuted at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival and marks the director's first feature animation since the Oscar-nominated The Triplets of Belleville in 2003 and it received loads of positivity out of the festival.
At Variety, Leslie Felperin says audiences "who don't expect animation to be aimed squarely at kids or to feature the latest technology will be utterly entranced by The Illusionist's old-school magic, but less adventurous viewers may need some persuading."
In Contention reviewer Guy Lodge gave it four-out-of-four stars calling it a "masterpiece" and "a rare case of one of the fest's most eagerly awaited titles managing to meet, and even subvert, expectations."
Kirk Honeycutt at The Hollywood Reporter is probably the least affectionate, but even his review is positive saying, "It's a mood piece, and that mood is melancholy," and that it "looks like a more rarefied adult cartoon that will have loads of invites to festivals, but theatrical exposure outside Europe might be scant. Chomet's name alone assures some level of distribution on several platforms, but buyers might be wary this time."
While I originally forgot to add it to my early list of Animated Feature Film Oscar contenders, I have since included it and The Illusionist is almost certain to be one of the most likely films to be nominated at this year's Oscars.
The film is based on an unproduced script by French comedy legend Jacques Tati and its main character most certainly resembles the late director and star of M. Hulot's Holiday, Mon Oncle and Play Time. The Illusionist details the story of a dying breed of stage entertainer whose thunder is being stolen by emerging rock stars. Forced to accept increasingly obscure assignments in fringe theaters, garden parties and bars, he meets a young fan who changes his life forever.
Today the Russian trailer for hit the Internet and I have included it for you directly below. You can also check out a French featurette for the film (if anyone can provide a translation that would be great) right here and five images from the film can be viewed in our gallery here.
The Illusionist hits French theaters on May 5 and does not yet have an American distributor. Sony Pictures Classics picked up The Triplets of Belleville and I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar move with this one.
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Chomet's twisted integrity!
"Jacques Tati's lost film reveals family's pain"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/jacques-tati-lost-film-family-illusionniste
This looks stunning! Do you know if it will be virtually dialogue-free like Triplets?
I'm sorry I don't, I only skimmed the reviews I listed because I try not to read reviews too closely before seeing a film. However, one of those that I linked to may help you.
I wouldn't be surprised though considering not only did Triplets not have a lot of dialogue, but Tati's films don't have a lot of dialogue either and if you like what you see here I would certainly recommend checking out Tati's films.
Brad, doesn't this seem like a rip-off of "Presto!", the Pixar short??
If that were to be the case it would actually be the other way around considering Tati has been dead since 1982 and this is based on one of his unfinished scripts.
As a huge fan of Tati's films, this is definitely on my list of must see films of the year.
I wonder if it'll have one nice melody of a song through out the entire film, like Tati's films.
Beautiful art direction, gorgeous character observation….
Çannot wait to see it, and I only wish more animated films
were being made outside the current hollywood formula.
Yipee!
Translation from Chomet's interview :
What made me really scared at first, was the presence of Jacques Tati. At the same time, it's not a film about Monsieur Hulot and not really a very typical Tati’s movie, because for this one, you really got a story about two characters who evolve over a long period, and takes place in many places geographically, while in Jacques Tati's films, it happens at the same time, same place.
I also wanted to distinguish myself from the way Tati’s films look up.
Because the films he made before "mon oncle" were very modern, very design, and sophisticated, and so I wanted to do something that was actually more “down-to-earth”, with many scenes taking place in nature, that we don’t often see in Jacques Tati’s films, except, in a way, in "jour de fête".
What I wanted most was the explanation of magic through the scenery, and hence through color. Finding a little bit the colors of Scotland. If you know Scotland, there is this very earthy side, the mountains are wild, they are brown, so there are many nuances in the colors there.
It changes constantly, it’s never the same brown, brown changes depending on the light, there are changes in light, and I think it works very well with the script to have these “all the time” changes, this is precisely a film about change.
The only thing I really wanted to keep, because I thought it would be sort of a game is no close-up in the film, be able to explain a very intimate story between two characters without ever have a close-up and just make it with Tati’s typical frame, ie a full shot, with views of the feet …
In fact, it's more based on the actual Jacques tatischef than on hulot. As described in the script, the illusionist character was described as a very elegant one, and Jacques Tati, in everyday life, was indeed a very elegant man.
And so we took that direction, we made him a little more grotesque like when he’s on stage, wearing his pants too short, so there he’s Mr. Hulot. Anyway in everyday life, he had this little surprised, a bit confused attitude. That was the thing I was most afraid at first, it was: Did we give him a soul, can we recognize it is Jacques Tati?
Shame Chomet doesn't respect why Tati, his supposed hero, originally wrote The Illusionist.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/jacques-tati-lost-film-family-illusionniste