[Movie] The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

[Sorry for this being a day late, publishers were preoccupied - Ed]

This, ladies and gentlement is my wonderful, glorious, brilliant and over-hyped review of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The new Terry Gilliam film that everyone is talking about because some dead guy is dead the first time you see him.

The story of Parnassus, for those who wish to know, is of an old man, his daughter, a dwarf and an apprentice who take a travelling show around London. The main part of this show is a magical mirror which takes the participant to the land of their dreams, whatever their imagination can give them. Parnassus has made a series of deal with Mr Nick, or The Devil to his friends. As part of this deal Parnassus stands to lose his daughter on her 16th birthday, a date getting very close. One stormy night, whilst riding through London the group find a man who is hanging from underneath a bridge. He joins the group, and begins bringing more business to the Imaginarium. The devil then offers Parnassus a last chance to save his daughter, the doctor hopes that Tony, their new member, will be able to help here.

Firstly, let’s introduce the elephant in the room. His name’s Jim. As you can see he’s well trained and loves peanuts. He even does this really cool dance. Oh.. sorry… what I meant to say was: Heath Ledger died during filming, and so the production was left with a problem. Terry Gilliam didn’t want to go on, the cast weren’t enthusiastic, the film was half finished, and no one could fill Heath’s shoes. It was, however, decided that Heath’s last film needed to be seen, and so some calls were made. One person couldn’t fill the role, but three could. Heath’s friends, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law were called upon to replace Heath. This could have been bad, this could have been done in such a way that ruined the film. If anything it made the film work on a new level. If you went into the film not knowing why the actors changed, you’d easily think it was planned.

With that said, let’s not forget the performances of the other actors in the film. Whilst Terry’s films have flaws, they give brilliance in ways that no other film maker can give. The acting from Christopher Plummer as the monk-turned-doctor and Tom Waits as Mr. Nick is wonderful. The film is saved in many places by Lily Cole, and the python-esque policemen had me laughing.

I always enjoy a Gilliam film, yes there may be moments when you think the film can’t come back from something particularly bad, but then Gilliam’s brain throws in something that does the impossible. Therein lies the greatness of Terry. He has a mind like no other, and what glimpse we get of it on screen proves that he is, undoubtedly one of the film makers of our time.

I’m not entirely sure if this plot actually ended. It stopped, started and went down so many different side alleys that it’s hard to tell, but that’s what you have to expect. There are flaws, some of them gaping, but it’s a brilliant film and I loved it. You have my wholehearted recommendation to watch this film.

In fact, as Tideland was a different film the second time, I suspect this will be too, so I will be seeing this at least one more time. Maybe you should watch it twice as well.

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This content is reposted from the Random Blog of Random Blogginess. The original post can be found Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

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