“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
Written by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown; Directed by Terry Gilliam; Stars Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. A fantasy that follows the leader of a traveling theatre troupe who, having made a deal with the devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations.
Seen January 15, 2010, by Lars Bastholm
LARS:
Why does God hate Terry Gilliam? If I were a religious man, I’d surely be able to spin a yarn around the whys and wherefores, but since I’m not, let me just say that few, if any, filmmakers have been plagued more by bad luck than Gilliam. This was most memorably documented in the excellent documentary “Lost in La Mancha”, which showed the events that made Gilliam’s proposed film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” collapse due to a truly spectacular series of unfortunate events.
As everyone who didn’t live in a cave the last couple years knows, Heath Ledger died halfway through the shooting of “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”. According to interviews at the time, Gilliam was ready to walk away and say fuck it – someone up there doesn’t want me to make movies anymore, I’m retiring. It was his daughter, who is also one of the producers of the film, who talked him back from the ledge and convinced him that the film was salvageable. And it was. While “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is not one of Gilliam’s best films, it’s a fascinating mess. But the messiness is not due to Ledger’s sudden passing.
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is obviously wonderful to look at. Gilliam has always seemed most sure of himself, when he’s inventing worlds or bringing landscapes of the imagination to life. For Gilliam aficionados it’s nice to see the clear continuation of design between “The Fisher King” and “Dr Parnassus” – it’s almost like “Dr Parnassus” is the feverish imaginations of Robin Williams in “The Fisher King” come to life.
It’s a slight and familiar story: A man makes a deal with the devil. Lives to regret it. Oh, and there’s a magic mirror that is a gateway to your imagination. Which would be cool to have. Tom Waits is having a ball hamming it up as the devil, and the model Lily Cole is surprisingly good in her first outing as an actor. Ledger does a fine job as Tony in a role that’s really not all that central to the core of the plot. His three stand-ins, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, perform fine acts of mimicry as they act out Tony’s experiences on the other side of the magic mirror.
So it’s slight, but all good fun. To say it’s a great Gilliam film would be pushing it, but it’s arguably his best since “Twelve Monkeys” from 1996, so that’s something. In a more just world Terry Gilliam would be making more movies to raise his batting average, but since he is one of our truly unique voices, please go see “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” so he can make more movies and have at least one more homerun before he does finally retire.
As of this writing, Gilliam is trying to get “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” back into production. God only knows what horrors will befall him this time. My fingers are crossed for you, Terry. Good luck!
