A scene that always captivates me everytime I watch the film again.'The image of the top hats at the beginning and end of the film, it is representative of the Borden’s and Angier’s development and how they continued to grow into people who are too big for their own good. The Borden brothers cannot co-exist with their lovers. Neither can Angier co-exist with Cutter and the others. Neither can Tesla and Thomas Edison, for that matter. The bigger the people get in technological power and narcissism, the more difficult it is to co-exist with them, visually concluded with the image of the numerous hats appropriately transitioned into the numerous dead Angiers and the destruction he created. Only the characters that avoid ambitions further than families and friends – indeed, their humanities – survive. The large box then lies in the background as a sign of that future, in which great technological possibilities will be an event to wonder but create descruction, and Cutter (Michael Caine) narrates about the self-destruction of knowledge and ambition. THE PRESTIGE makes us aware of something terrifying through this: how the discoveries, growth and future of men will be as tragic as it will be victorious.'
