The Illusionist is a lovely animated movie by French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet — a movie that, despite its beauty, has a disturbing message.
Its leading characters are a kindly vaudeville magician and the young working girl whom he befriends. The story is sweet and full of pathos, as the older gentleman sacrifices his own comfort and well being to please the girl. Appropriately, the film is drawn in the soft-edged, old-school style that predates Pixar. Its French pedigree is obvious, from its watercolor backgrounds and exaggerated, non-realistic faces to its impressionistic musical score. The characters communicate with each other through a combination of mime and an odd pseudo-language reminiscent of the way adults speak in the old "Peanuts" TV specials. This adds to the dreamlike quality of the story, although it can be off-putting to those who aren't fans of French animation.
Based on a story by Jacques Tati (1907–1982), the famous French filmmaker, The Illusionist is intended to show the deep father-daughter connection between a lonely old man and an equally lonely young girl. Metaphorically, however, the film offers a powerful, though certainly unintentional, warning look at the relationship between the working class and the welfare class. The magician's relationship with the young cleaning girl begins innocently and sweetly. When her bar of soap slips away from her while she is cleaning the floors, he picks it up and "magically" turns it into a fancy box of perfumed hand soap, offering it to her with a flourish. She is thrilled. The next day she washes his shirt to show her appreciation, and he "magically" produces a coin from her ear to thank her — the way kindly uncles do when they visit little nieces and nephews. Noticing that the sole of her shabby shoe is flapping wildly as she walks, he buys her a pair of bright red shoes.
Before long the magician's gig at the local vaudeville theater ends, and he must move on to the next town. Without being invited, the girl follows him. When the conductor asks for her ticket, she points to the old man, miming her expectation that he will produce a ticket for her out of thin air. Not wanting to disappoint her, the poor man complies, again with a magical flourish. Throughout the rest of the film the girl stays with the man, pointing to new goodies that she wants — a new coat, high-heeled shoes, a new dress, and a coin from her ear every time they part. The man takes on extra jobs to pay for her increasing demands. He sleeps on the couch so she can have the single bedroom in his tiny apartment. Sadly, the girl never catches on to what is happening to the man. You can probably guess where this leads. Small- time magicians, like golden geese, eventually give out.
The film offers a powerful demonstration of what has happened to a whole generation of people who have grown up under the welfare state. They have no idea where money comes from, or how to earn it. They turn to the government for housing, food stamps, education, medical care, and even entertainment in the form of parks and recreation. They seem to think that money can appear out of thin air, and that people who work owe them all the goodies they want. Like the man in the film, tax-paying Americans are becoming threadbare and exhausted. The demands on them are too many, and they're tired of not being appreciated for meeting those demands. At some point they are going to stop working — also like the man in the film. What then?
A friend who teaches middle school in the Bronx asked her students to write an essay about what they want to be when they grow up — pretty standard fare for a middle-school essay. One young man wrote about going to college, becoming a lawyer, and representing clients in court. "I'll make a lot of money, and I'll wear nice suits and carry a briefcase," he dreamed. But he ended his essay with this chilling observation: "If I do that, I'll probably earn too much money and I'll lose my housing and food stamps. So maybe that's not such a good idea." What a self-defeating decision! Yet I see that idea in practice every day as I work with people from Yonkers and the Bronx. They are so afraid of losing their tiny apartments in crumbling buildings on potholed streets in seedy neighborhoods that they won't even consider moving to a different state with a lower cost of living, where they could get a job and provide for their families themselves.
How surprising, that the demise of the American dream would be so skillfully and artistically presented in the form of a French animated film. It is well worth sharing with friends as a cautionary tale of pending disaster.
