Rating: ***/*****
Based on a novel by Christopher Priest. I think I might be interested in the book, but must see how good his command of the language is.

It’s one of the greyest film I’ve ever watched, and it’s good precisely because there’s no clear cut between the good and the bad, the moral and the perverse… and there’re lots of twists and turns, with clues slotted in at various points.

Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called “The Pledge”; the magician shows you something ordinary, but of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”; the magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now if you’re looking for the secret… you won’t find it, that’s why there’s a third act called, “The Prestige”; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.

The Prestige

The predominant theme is that of obsession, compulsions and ambition. Just how much are you willing to sacrifice for power? Two men, Angier (Hugh Jackman, *drool*), and Borden (Christian Bale *double drool*) play fueding magicians with great intensity, with Cutter (Michael Caine), sort of a mediator between the two; add in Olivia (common love interest, in a twisted sort of way) (Scarlett Johansson), and you’ve got a stellar cast!

*Spoilers ahead*
So what exactly is Borden’s secret in the Transported Man that Angier has been obsessing over?
- Borden has a twin, Fallon
That makes everything shown in the film fit into place, like how Borden seemed to love both his wife Sara and his assistant Olivia just as much, and how he behaves oddly in the companion of each woman.

And what exactly is the greatest invention by mankind? The powerful, destructive invention by Nikola Tesla (David Bowie)?
- It’s actually a ‘photocopier’ (for lack of a better word to describe)…
What happens every night was that Angier would create a photocopy of himself, which would fall thru the secret trapdoor into a tank of water which was automatically locking, thus drowning the poor man. The photocopy (identical in all aspects of thought) would then enjoy the prestige by appearing at the opposite end of the hall! Imagine having to drown yourself 100 times! (that’s how many times Angier staged his ‘the new transported man’ performance) The cool part is that the audience doesn’t get to see all this until the final act…

He was willing to go thru the suffering (both physical) and the mental torment (his wife drowned the same way) every night just so that Borden would be tempted enough to go backstage to discover the secret of his magic. And true enough, Borden did that, and he saw ‘Angier’ drowning… whereupon, the stage having been set (there were no witnesses, the only person backstage, was blind), sealed his fate as a murderer, and was summarily hanged.

My friend asked me: What would you do if you had such a powerful secret? One that the world wasn’t prepared for?
- I really don’t know… Despite having thought it thru this weekend. Can’t deny I’m an ambitious person; and the thought of absolute power (to a control freak like me) is almost intoxicating… hehe… but then I think there’s still a modicum of decency left in me to make the right choice. I think absolute power would be having the ability to stop myself from abusing the power that has come into my possession.

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