"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal August
"Yep, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is enchanting."
C. Robert Cargill, Sep 30, 2009
Terry Gilliam is back. Whatever dark place he was spirited away to after the collapse and failure of of his now infamous Don Quixote movie has clearly passed and he has returned to us. It appeared that the fates had conspired to stop him once again, this time by robbing him (and us) of Heath Ledger midway through shooting. Fortunately for him, however, the film they were making together was a dark fantasy film and Ledger had shot all the requisite scenes needed to finish with other actors standing in for him "beyond the mirror." The result is nothing short of a modern masterpiece that has already divided audiences, some finding it disappointing while others -- myself and my wife included -- were completely enchanted, in love and wanting to see it again.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is the story of an immortal man with something of a gambling addiction. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a man centuries old, once made a deal with the devil ... and won, gaining immortality. But over time the Devil has offered him a number of deals and wagers -- wagers he finds very hard to resist. After ending up on the losing end of a deal, Parnassus finds himself three days away from losing his 16-year-old daughter's soul to the Devil (legendary guttural crooner and sometimes actor Tom Waits). So when the Devil offers him a chance to win back his daughter's soul, he jumps at the deal. The wager? First to win five souls in the doctor's wondrous imaginarium.
But just when things seem unwinnable, a mysterious stranger shows up who may or may not be able to help Parnassus win back the soul of his daughter. That stranger? Heath Ledger.
Ledger died midway through the shooting of this film, potentially dooming it to extinction -- but fortunately he had shot virtually everything that occurs outside of the mirror in the real world. And in an odd twist of fate -- as in completely unintentional -- Ledger happened to be wearing a mask of some sort every time he stepped through. This allowed Gilliam to tweak the story a little, having the imaginarium change Ledger's appearance to fit with the wild world beyond the mirror. Taking Ledger's place, and doing their best to give their loving farewell renditions to Ledger are none other than Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell. Each is masterful in their performance, with the audience fully invested in each different (and lets face it, iconic) actor as the same character that we've been following. In fact, you kind of forget that you're looking at these wonderful actors and simply buy them as Tony, as if Ledger had somehow crawled inside the skin of these very recognizable men. Also appearing in the film is a young unknown (and stunningly beautiful) Lily Cole and very well known Verne Troyer, who gives quite possibly the best performance of his career.
The film is one of Gilliam's masterpieces, a complicated, fantastic, and mind-bending fantasy film unlike anything you've ever seen. Unlike Gilliam's darker pieces, this is more akin to his work on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, and Jabberwocky, but it is better than all three of these films. This is everything I love about Gilliam distilled into a single, perfect fairy tale. It's not simple, nor is it for everyone. But it is a marvelous, imaginative piece of fiction that will transport you into Gilliam's mind for two solid hours. This comes highly recommended and is a must for any and all Ledger fans out there. A perfect send-off for an incredible lost talent, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opens in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day.
