The Prestige (2006)

Whenever there is a question of originality, I ask myself: who?

Which is to say: what?

Never mind when.

In the end, at the beginning, the original is always never the same as the duplicate. The duplicate can be the original at the end or the beginning, and at the same time not be the original: a divergent convergence.

In The Prestige (2006) the part becoming whole is not the same as the whole of the parts. The mind wanders along paths that seem to meet and split, that contain puzzles and traps, and eventually the nature of the split is defined as magic. This is the primal element of deception: a fragmenting of the self, hiding the truth. And when the truth is bodied, embodied?

The answer to the riddle of the sphinx is always death.

In nature, nothing is exactly the same. People make nature conform not only to themselves, but also to the concept of nature. So is the idea of nature the same as nature itself (does nature have a self)?

As the truth eludes the eye, it cannot elide the ear. Language is the nature of individuality; it is the expression of self. Not necessarily spoken, but acted, too. What contains dissonance is language, it reverberates, reveals itself, in love. 

Two people cannot learn to love the same way. It is the greatest schizophrenia, as a magic act. Nature rebels because it is the empty ego, it cannot be filled the same way by two vessels—the space itself is different.

So the poor charade goes on, and one day there is love, and one day there is hate.

Meanwhile, unable to unravel the schizophrenia, he sees one where there are two, and in looking finds that in one there can indeed be two, but one must always be deducted so that there can be some sense of originality. Hugh Jackman, pride is the fall. It is a killing fall, wrapped up in the hangman’s noose; woven by water and repetition, the tides ebb and flow, a magic box that cannot be opened.

Finally, the climax is reached when revenge is sought, and bought, paid for in karmic dues: a life for a life. So whence there were two there now is one. There is no greater magic trick than deceit—this is the nature of the magic trick. Real magic cannot be understood, that is the nature of the word. The prestige of magic is precisely that it is a trick. In the prestige, the value of the trick emerges, as does the price that needs to be paid in recompense for the deception.

A true illusion is reality; a magic trick is never this, it is always that.

Kublai Kahn, Marco showed you the magic of language in repetition, can you see the nature of its truth in the fall?