The Prestige

Christopher Nolan has given us several remarkable movies, (i.e. Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight), and this movie is also simply amazing. As he said in the Making of the Prestige-material, he has made this movie to show how storytelling techniques can help to give the public a wonderful experience. The screenplay in this movie is structured so well, and you get the right piece of information at the right time in order to give you a magical experience. Ironically, the story deals around magicians and how their performances were/are structured to give the public an exciting experience. Such a performance consists of following three parts;

The pledge
The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't.

The turn
The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."

The prestige
So what’s The Prestige? The Prestige is the climax to every magic trick - traditionally the re-appearrance of the magician after he had dissapeared.

The movie is also structured just like such a great magical trick. First you’ll see what happens in the movie and get indicative ending. But that wasn’t the ending anyway, and you’ll experience the prestige to get the overwhelming experience.

The movie is simply a piece of art work.

Rating: 5 of 6