Simon, the Magician

This is a Hungarian movie made in France about a famous magician with supernatural powers, who is called in by the French police to solve a murder. He does that without much problem, but then the movie goes off in a different direction showing kind of a fish out of water, and Simon being challenged by another well known magician to survive being buried underground for three days. Inbetween, there's kind of a silly love story where he seems to fall in love with a young lady, and the language barrier sets up some pretty humorous moments. I didn't like the ending at all, but all in all, this is a pretty entertaining movie. Excellent soundtrack with Beethoven's 7th Symphony, Bartok, and Brian Eno used very effectively along with a little Massive Attack. I would recommend it just to see the excellent performances.

I tend to be sucker for foreign movies (especially French ones), since they often don't follow the American "feel good" formula. Based on the IMDb ratings, we borrowed this from the library.

Here's what we got:

Great photography and scenes of Paris, which always goes over well.

Great music.

Parallels to Biblical writings.

A bunch of flat, undeveloped characters about whom we did not care.

A beautiful young woman who falls in love with an old man in spite of a complete language barrier

A very slow moving movie that we kept hoping would go somewhere...anywhere.

Maybe we're just not sophisticated enough?

4 stars because the acting was good, the photography was good, and the music was good.

The movie includes beautiful sceneries from Paris and everything else. Many people say that actress Julie Delarme was quite pretty in this film. The story is cute, and some parts are very funny. The music is excellent (featuring Massive Attack, Beethoven and Bartok). I think this movie is ideal for seeing it with your girl/boyfriend. (note: although it's a Hungarian production, there isn't too much about Hungary in it. The story goes in France.)

I normally ONLY write book reviews as I am a publisher and amateur writer; in this case I had to make an exception as I truly adore this movie. (Disclaimer; I might be bias as I am a aficionado of esoterica and magic. That is why I have rented it from Netflix.. It is possible that if you are not into these things as I am, you might feel differently!)

This is a movie about true miracles versus "the phenomena" for the sake of it. The essence of the movie is the opposing characters of the two and resurrection versus hibernation. Peter is all about effort, he is standing on his head to show off and become the star, while Simon is a natural he draws people to him, with calming and healing qualities. People, who naturally savor phenomena often forsaking and missing the true miracles of life that often masquerades as happenstance or luck. The love affair is also a sideshow to see the glimpse of the ending from the mirror of the girl's eyes. A truly visual and esoteric movie. Full with symbolism of sleep, nature's magic and love and redemption.