The Prestige (Christopher Nolan 2006)
Posted on February 27 at 20.04, 2007 by Eric Mahleb
Christopher Nolan’s latest film, while intriguing, falls short of the brilliance he previously demonstrated with Memento, and to a lesser extent, with Insomnia.
This tale of two rival magicians in 19th century London, released curiously almost at the same time as The Illusionist (one of these Hollywood ‘coincidences’), suffers from an unnecessarily complicated narrative structure that offers too little reward for the effort, and from a large number of overly convenient and unrealistic scenes. Many of these scenes do not always flow smoothly into one another but rather seem to jump, skipping over essential material that probably couldn’t be handled meaningfully, or highlighting a characteristic of faulty scripts: the inability to make all the different parts function together. Or perhaps, it is simply the result of the narrative structure that Nolan chose, proving in this case that, sometimes, plain old linear might be better.
The outcome is uneven, fascinating and beautiful to look at on the one hand, dull and somewhat amateurish on the other (especially the scenes with Scarlett Johansson, in what is regrettably a very boring role).
And the ending of the film, its Prestige, a slightly outlandish (in its realization, and not necessarily in its idea) and constant back and forth of revelations, a bit a la Mission Impossible when everybody takes turns removing their mask, felt somewhat anti-climatic as some these revelations could be guessed earlier in the film and seemed out of sync with the intensity with which Nolan propelled us towards them.
Spoiler ahead:
I must now go and look for my doubles as I think I went through that Tesla machine at Burning Man once…
My vote: 
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2 Responses to “The Prestige”
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Rick Says:
May 13, 2007 at 14.11I did like The Prestige being a fan of Christian Bale. I liked most of the movie but I agree with you that the end was anti-climatic. Other than the end I enjoyed the film.
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The Dark Knight - Quiet Please - Cinema Futures by Eric Mahleb Says:
October 24, 2008 at 13.41[…] Christopher Nolan’s relatively brief career has been remarkable so far. The brilliant and already cult classic Memento (2000), the moody and visually striking remake of Insomnia (2002), the decent but provoking The Prestige (2006) and the two Batman films, all are clearly the marks of someone with a high level of control, skill and understanding of the cinematic medium and of its techniques. Darkness also seems an underlying thread of these films, in visual terms and through their subject matters. With The Dark Knight, Nolan delivers a very accomplished film that epitomizes the high quality entertainment film. Most aspects of the movie are solid and the result is a non-stop thrill ride. Unfortunately, this focus on pace means that occasionally, the scenes flow from one to the next in a somewhat abrupt and not always logical way, leaving the viewer with some unanswered questions. Like a comic book that has a limited capacity for background information, The Dark Knight jumps from major scene to major scene, leaving out everything in between. […]