The Illusionist

Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands a travelling French magician named Tatisheff befriends a teenage girl who soon adopts the elder gentleman as a father and benefactor. Travelling through a most enchanting Edinburgh and British countryside, the accidental duo and makeshift family unit head for Paris, where the conjurer has always lived. Sadly, he must struggle to find work around the dying embers of the music hall scene. Can he keep his young companion in the manner to which she has swiftly become accustomed?
Based on an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati and sumptuously animated by Sylvian Chomet (The Triplets Of Belleville) this fabulous concoction has endured a complicated evolution toward a cinema near you. The source material – originally written by the mime, director and comedian as a 1956 letter to his estranged daughter - was conceived sometime between Mon Oncle and Playtime. By golly it shows. This gorgeous, achingly melancholic throwback may be the best film of 2010 thus far. Even in spirit, Tati has lost none of his power to reduce paying punters to tears. Bring tissues.