The Illusionist

2010/Fr/80mins/ Dir. Sylvain Chomet
Cast: Jean-Claude Donda, Edith Rankin, Jil Aigro

Chomet follows up Belleville Rendez-Vous with this gorgeous hand-drawn animation adapted from an unproduced script by Jacques Tati.

Conjurer Monsieur Tatischeff is one of a dying breed of stage entertainers in the late 1950s. Forever searching for paid gigs, he and his grumpy, obese rabbit trek from Paris to London, Edinburgh to the Western Isles, where he meets Alice. Believing his tricks to be real, Alice follows him to Edinburgh, where he is forced to take on menial jobs to keep up the illusion of magically appearing new gifts: can he keep the facade up? Bittersweet and beautiful, this is a wonderfully inventive ode to Scotland, Tati, and old-fashioned filmmaking.