Simon the Magician
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This story of Simon the magician is a contemporary retelling of a first century biblical sorcerer. Director Ildiko Enyedi (My Twentieth Century, The Magic Hunter) depicts him as a whimsical albeit weary magician who shuns the celebrity of his astonishing accomplishments and wants only to live simply. He is tired of the notoriety that follows him for his deeds. We find him sleeping in Budapest as he is awakened like a bear from hibernation and asked to help with a murder case that has the Paris police baffled. He somewhat reluctantly agrees. After traveling to Paris, he is met with some skepticism by authorities when he asks for his payment up front and in cash. However, there is a tacit understanding that he will bring results. In contrast, others treat him with reverence and awe, including the woman who translates for him and a young police officer on the case.
Woven throughout is his fascination, attraction, and uncanny protection of a young woman, Jeanne, whom he first sees at the train station en route to his rendezvous with the police. He exerts a protective power and she is somehow freed from the harassment of a security guard. He later encounters her on the street where she is polling passersby about their religious beliefs. He answers her questions in a strange fashion and then invites her for coffee. She becomes annoyed with him until she realizes he does not speak French and has therefore answered inappropriately, although his answers remain the same. There is a palpable tension between them that holds throughout the film in anticipation of what might come.
An old rival seeks him out and challenges him to a contest of who has the greater powers. He has no interest in a media sideshow and refuses. Later, after he and Jeanne have developed a nebulous and inexplicable bond, he has a change of mind and accepts the challenge of his rival. They are both buried for three days, one of several Christian references woven into the plot, witnessed by camera and news crews. Naming characters Peter and Paul likewise are clues to the multilevels the writer/director Enyedi is working on. What happens when they are dug up smoothly continues Simon's story and leads further down the supernatural path on which Enyedi has led us.
Péter Andorai is perfectly cast as Simon, both in temperament and physically, having a lumbering, benevolent bear-like presence. In one wonderful scene, he audaciously falls asleep in an alley and literally goes into a hibernation state that illustrates how little concern he has for conventional ways of survival. He typically says little which in turn results in those around him to surmise much, having the effect of maintaining his aura of mystery and magic. [1]
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