Terry Gilliam is a brilliant designer. In most cases, he's a miserable director. His films a stuffed with visual goodies, and quirky performances, but they are completely lacking in any emotion or humanity. His films rarely investigate anything meaningful, instead they chase down esoteric philosophical points or overly complex plot situations. Gilliam is capable of some very good moments, but his overall body of work is over-hyped by people who confuse interesting with meaningful.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus tells the tale of the titular Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) who runs a theater troupe that travels London. Parnassus has made a deal with the devil (portrayed by Tom Waits) and has a wager to snare or save five souls. The ante? Parnassus' daughter Valentina (Lily Cole).

Patrons are lured into a mirror onstage, behind which they enter into a supernatural world where their morality is tested and they find pleasure or damnation.

The goofy plot provides Gilliam with plenty of canvas on which to apply his visual flair. The plot unfortunately also gets easily convoluted. Gilliam makes the error of presenting the universe of Parnassus without explaining the details early on. Instead, Gilliam loads the first half of the film with fantastic, but obscure imagery and scenes without explaining what is going on in a logical fashion. The average audience member will most likely tune out of the film before the plot's hook is revealed. For those willing to hang on, the explanation seems more like a cobbled together excuse than a intentional narrative.

The film had a short cinematic shelf life. It would have been completely ignored, like many of Gilliam's other films, if it were not for Heath Ledger's untimely death.

Ledger was working on this film at the time of his drug-induced passing. To complete the film, Gilliam introduced a cheesy element where Ledger's character Tony transforms into different physical forms. This permitted Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to step in and complete Ledger's scenes.

The inclusion of these other actors is conspicuous. These scenes are also, mostly, unnecessary. The added actors are put into scenes where they deal with surreal chase sequences and conflicts. They all give stunted performances Their disconnect with the material is clearly seen in their work.

Ultimately this is a disjointed and unemotional film. Gilliam may have the ability to create quirky and strange designs but he has always flounder giving them any humanity.




Related Reviews:
Heath Ledger movies
Casanova (2005)
The Dark Knight (2008)


Other Critic's Reviews:
Film School Rejects
The Writer's Corner





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Labels: Andrew Garfield, Christopher Plummer, Colin Farrell, Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Lily Cole, Peter Stormare, Terry Gilliam, Tom Waits