Similar to the former, The prestige also starts the progress of the movie from a point in time when the story itself is close to 1/4. The antecedents are supplemented first, and then follow the subsequent development with the audience, which is more attractive than complete flashbacks.
It is like suddenly breaking into a trial of others: first, we will be curious about the origins of the prosecution and the defense and who has the upper hand; what are the testimony and witnesses of each person; then we will guess and verify our guesses. The film's account of the past of the two magicians can indirectly answer these questions, while also throwing out a bigger and more magical bait - what is the key part of "The Great Migration"? Then, by nature, the audience is bound to pursue it, keep guessing, and verify all the way until the final result is obtained. Near the end, Scarlett Johansson was introduced logically to prevent the audience from guessing the result, relax their attention, intensify the contradiction, and make the causal relationship more smooth. In this way, the director's desire for control is well dispersed and practiced in specific prose. (I personally think this is his consistent excellence.)
Compared with the former, another highlight of this film I saw is the confrontation between the two competing sides and the uncertainty of good and evil on both sides. In Pirates of Dreams, no matter how many layers of dreams, we have always made it clear that Xiao Li is a "good guy" as the main line, chasing after his experience. In The Prestige, the duo and the duo are fighting for each other. When my heart is on one side, the other side will make some moves that will shake me. The director and the screenwriter put the audience in an independent situation, making the relative good and evil between the two rivals more and more blurred: the initial conflict between the duo and the duo team broke out, that is, the beginning of the story, it was the duo's mistake that caused the duo team Losing a lover is a clear right and wrong, no doubt about it. So it seems plausible that the duo is fighting back against the duo. However, as the events continued to develop, the meaning of their "comparisons" with each other became more and more detached from the original intention, and the right and wrong among them became more and more subtle. It's as if the director starts with a light and dark boundary line, and then pushes it to the sides, with more and more layers of gray tones, and finally turns the plane into a visual three-dimensionality. This is wonderful.
The director distributes the arguments evenly and unifies them with their own content. When I saw "not today", I realized it might be two people, but I was actually thinking about schizophrenia or something; when I saw Tesla's machine discharge, I also wondered if it could be transmission. machine or something. However, it's not as appropriate as the director/writer's set in any way. Without considering too much perversion psychology/criminal psychology theory, and setting the background in the electrical age rather than the time when technology can create everything, he is actually putting constraints on the film and reducing the available thinking props. In this case, when he came up with a very special result, we would be stunned and reasonable. In fact, I think this also implies the repeated description of the "magic syllogism" in the movie, taking ordinary things and doing strange things, thus turning corruption into magic. I wouldn't find it very interesting if he set the background to a period of infinite possible technological civilization, and it would be even more water if he used schizophrenia to fill the number.
When we discussed Tesla, two problems emerged. It's actually a two-tiered question: Why would the duo come out to know about Tesla? Did the duo know Tesla could build replica machines? I think the duo only provided this clue when they saw the horrific side of the machine in Tesla's display at the exhibition, and wanted to lead the duo into a dead end. The original intention of both the scientists and the replication team was to study a material transfer machine, and scientists were not sure whether it would succeed. It was discovered in later experiments that this machine could be used, but it was actually a replicator. Scientific research is not 100% certainty, but a product of belief and funding.
No matter which side, the purpose has gradually changed from revenge at the beginning to the obsession with this matter, the enthusiasm for defeating the opponent. Paranoia really succeeded! A seemingly impossible thing, they even just found two ways to achieve. Of course, both sides paid a huge price. Paranoia can be absolutely successful, but cannot live. Paranoia should be more than an obsession with success. It is not their ultimate goal to have a huge impact on others, or to have a huge impact on the cause they are engaged in. I always find their joy in the process of self-realization. To purify and sublime oneself, no matter the cost, never get tired of it. And life is a matter of compromise and mixing with others. So, to work or to live? Make a choice first.
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