Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasis (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

               THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Terry Gilliam's new film is a lot like his
     previous imaginative films, only perhaps more so.
     A small tacky traveling show in a caravan hides real
     magic.  It has a gateway to a subjective land created
     by the visitor's own imagination.  The show's owner
     is also genuinely immortal do to a pact he has made
     with Satan himself.  The actual story is muddled, but
     the imagination of the visual imagery is very good.
     And Gilliam deserves admiration for having brought
     this film to fruition in spite of nearly impossible
     circumstances.  Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

Terry Gilliam's first feature film was TIME BANDITS.  He had a boy
in his bedroom when suddenly a knight on horseback breaks though
the bedroom wall and flies into the room.  It is amazing.
Gilliam's style is to astonish with the unexpected happening very
suddenly.  That has become his trademark.  He did not have a strong
coherent story for that film, but he did have the sudden surprises.
That has become his trademark and it really seems to be the really
point of his films.  To much too great an extent his films are very
similar.  They do not tell their story well but they do have great
big stunning visual surprises.  That does not quite compensate for
a story that is not entirely coherent.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is pretty much what we expect
 from Gilliam.  His visuals outdo Gilliam's previous work, but are
along similar lines.  The story has something to do with a series
of bets between the title character (Christopher Plummer) and the
Devil (Tom Waits).  Somehow the good doctor is saving souls by
trapping their owners in what appears to be a dimension of
imagination on the other side of a gateway which appears to be
sheets of mirrored plastic.  One can be pleased when the good guys
are winning, but that is not as good as understanding the game.
(Of course, don't take my word.  I still don't follow Quidditch.)

The film begins one night with a weird and shabby little wagon-
bound show appearing in an ugly neighborhood of London all too near
the raucous pubs.  The show appears to be obviously a cheap fake
only a little better than the sidewalk buskers.  Ah, but looks are
deceiving.  This is a real magic show in the tradition of Charles
Finney's THE CIRCUS OF DR. LAO, Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED
THIS WAY COMES, and Tom Reamy's BLIND VOICES.  The mirror on the
stage really is a gateway to a mysterious world or set of worlds
where what one sees is based on one's own imagination.  Later,
while the show is traveling the performers see a mysterious figure
dancing on the River Thames.  It turns out to be the reflection of
a man hanging from a bridge.  (It makes no sense that the
reflection would look like that, but there you have it.)  The
hanging man, rescued in a nick of time, is Tony (Heath Ledger).  He
travels with the show and starts suggesting innovative ways to
modernize their image and make the show more profitable.  But
Doctor Parnassus resists,

We never really get a feel for what the show the traveling company
puts on is really all about.  It is supposed to have some magic,
but the real magic is behind a gateway that the audience is
supposed to stay away from.  We never see much magic in the show
beyond a little juggling.  So what is the audience supposed to see?
The audience is told about the magic of the mirror, but that makes
for a show duller than having an impresario tell an audience how a
giant ape was captured.  Just telling an audience stories makes for
very dull showmanship.

I suppose that no review of this film would be complete without
mentioning that it was a marvel that it was made at all.  Heath
Ledger had done all the real-world scenes but none of the fantasy-
world scenes when he died of a drug overdose.  Terry Gilliam had
the clever idea that everybody's appearance would change once they
entered the magic world.  So Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin
Farrell completed the rest of Ledger's scenes.  Curiously enough,
most people find that the idea works.

Terry Gilliam makes the magical world in this film very magical
indeed.  And the part that takes place in the un-magical, mundane
world is very mundane and un-magical indeed.  I rate this film a
high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/>

What others are saying: <http://tinyurl.com/y9nhd2t>

					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2010 Mark R. Leeper