The Illusionist (2010)

  This isn't the one you're probably thinking of.  This is a French animated film nominated for an Oscar back in 2011.  The other one has Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti.

This is an odd, sad little movie.  It's better than The Triplets of Belleville but that's about all I can say in its defense.

Tatischeff is a Parisian magician who finds himself pushed into ever more obscure venues as stage acts give way to rock and roll bands.  While performing in a pub in Scotland, Tatischeff meets a young woman named Alice, who still believes magic is real.  Despite his mounting debts, Tatischeff does everything he can to prolong her sense of wonder.

This was a very difficult movie for me for me to connect with emotionally, probably because there is almost no dialogue.  Instead, I was forced to judge the characters on action alone and, frankly, Alice comes off as kind of a brat.  She's not bitchy or rude, but her sense of entitlement that someone else was going to magically get her whatever she wanted, got on my last nerve.  Also, the sad decline of the other performers was just too depressing.  I cared more about what was going to happen to them than I did to the two main characters.

I was wrong before.  There was one other thing that I liked about this movie and that was the landscapes.  The background animation of the Scottish lochs and some of the countryside scenes were so beautiful I wanted to screenshot them and use them as artwork.  If only for that, I can see why it was nominated.