The Prestige – Obsession

This is truly a rich film, rich in twists, rich in themes, rich in good acting,  and I really do not know where to start. Luckily sites like Wikipedia exist helping me to arrange my thoughts, refreshing my memory and helping me to pick out some themes, therefore some of the themes Wikipedia  and myself identified are as follows:

1. Obsession.
2. Revenge.
3. Deceit.
4. Sacrifice.
5. Lifelessness.

I think this is more than enough themes (and maybe to much to handle) for one blog post therefore I think that I’ll have to take each theme on it’s own and discuss one per day!

**Spoiler Warning**

Obsession.

In the film version of The Prestige (there is a book as well with a totally different plot than the movie – but I guess some of the themes should be the same?) Angier becomes obsessed with his old friend, Borden – now rival – new act “The transported man”. What bothers Angier the most is that Borden is now living the “full life” that, him and his belated wife should have had – happily married, with a child (kind of like the American dream, except for the fact that their life dream isn’t interrupted by an insipid president ). Angier’s obsession with being the best, outwitting his rival and becoming the ultimate magician and performer sends him in a downwards spiral of “getting his hands dirty” and compromising life itself.

Where in the past he wouldn’t been able to even hurt a bird he found himself of not only killing his adversary and taking away a child from her father but ends up killing himself in the process (more than once !). On his path he also blows up every relationship that he has ever had, dying a soulless, deceitful and egocentric man.

Borden on “his” side is so obsessed with keeping up “his” show, keeping up appearances and not even trusting “his” own wife, is responsible for her suicide. But more on this in “Sacrifice”.

It is so sad that even today some people’s lives revolve around obsession and jealousy. Leading them to die on the inside and not becoming the person God intended and called them to be.

If we were to look at 1 Cor. 12 – 14 we clearly see that God wants to use all of us for the benefit of other people. That life isn’t intended to be lived for oneself, but should be lived in the service of other people – quite a challenge in the self-centred world that we find ourselves in. Then our only obsession should be the honour of God and the glory of His kingdom.