Fri, 29 Mar, 2024

The Prestige: Movie Review

By Mahan Adhikari

Picture Courtesy: google.com

One of the best Christopher Nolan’s presentation, the prestige was a gem of a movie depicting the life of two magicians. This movie had everything in it except prestige itself because none of the two leading characters end up living with prestige. The Prestige is a film made on the idea from a novel by Christopher Priest and released on October 20, 2006. The film is based on the rivalry and criticism between two magicians from the Victorian London.  Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are the leading characters of the film. Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Piper Perabo, Andy Serkis and Rebecca Hall are the supporting actors. A story created with the co-production between Touchstone Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, Prestige received immensely positive reviews. It also received Academy award nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

An obsession with making the best stage illusions made the two best magicians fight for each others flesh. The story starts with a commentary from Cutter (Michael Caine) stating that a magic performance unfolds in three stages. The first stage is 'The Pledge', where we're shown something; the second, 'The Turn', centers on a disappearance; and the third part, 'The Prestige', a person or object is miraculously brought back, leaving the audience stunned and delighted. Angier and Borden used to work together at first but things changed when Angier’s wife died while performing a live trick. Angier was sure that Borden was the one behind his wife’s failed illusion. Angier then started to destroy all the magic shows that Alfred performed and so did Alfred. The most significant moment of their rivalry started after an illusion called “The Transported Man”. The rivalry drives both men to complete madness. Angier tries on doing something magical with the help of magic, illusions, and science but the trick changes into one of the worst mistakes of Angier’s life.

This being Nolan’s movie the time period is not chronological and turns around at several time periods. Understanding the movie from a single view is almost next to impossible. It takes a patient mind to figure out what’s happening. The absence of chronological time period makes it difficult to understand the movie. After watching the film, people may want to read the novel as well because of the brilliant idea and acute editing by Lee Smith. The story is really good and the acting is exceptional. 'The Prestige' is a very good movie to watch, but this is the kind of movie that requires all of your attention. People who can understand event and dialogues well will enjoy this movie to the fullest.