The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

By Jonathan Fisher, November 5th, 2009


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a typically unique Terry Gilliam film, bizarre and imaginative in some ways, stilted and frustrating in others. This movie will be remembered as the film Heath Ledger was filming when he died, which resulted in Gilliam clamouring to find a way to end his movie with just a three-quarter performance from Ledger. The end result is a muddled but enjoyable film that actually has a lot to offer on the subject of the tricks every film-maker employs to create the illusion of cinema.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus follows the exploits of a travelling theatre company led by the titular character (played by Christopher Plummer), his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), his vertically-challenged assistant Percy (Verne Troyer) and Anton (Andrew Garfield), another assistant who is hopelessly in love with Valentina. As we see in the first scene, the 'imaginarium' is a mirror that, when entered, manifests whatever its occupant's imagination can conjure. There's something of a catch. Due to some sort of deal Doctor Parnassus made with his nemesis Mr. Nick (Tom Wait in his glorious "Satan" mode), the imaginarium always ends with the same climax -- a choice for the occupant to give into temptation (and damnation) by siding with Mr. Nick, or to return to the real world with Doctor Parnassus, after experiencing life-changing revelations.

The troupe eventually come across Tony (Heath Ledger), who is hanging by his neck from a bridge when they find him. After rescuing him, Tony claims he has amnesia, and soon joins the troupe. He proves to be adept at charming women (and their wallets). There's something perpetually mysterious about Tony, and we get the sense we can never really trust him.

Terry Gilliam has always primary been a director obsessed with visuals, and Parnassus is no different. He's a little less certain telling a human story, and as such the stretches of the film that exist outside the imaginarium are a little less riveting and interesting than the sequences in the imaginarium. Parnassus is Gilliam's celebration of imagination, its liberating qualities, and the importance of it in building our identity, both collectively and individually. The scenes inside the imaginarium are spell-bindingly beautiful, and I questioned what a Gilliam version of Alice in Wonderland would have looked like. With Tim Burton's adaptation of that Lewis Carroll story on the way, we may never know.

The talking point of the film for most will of course be Ledger and his sadly incomplete performance. The method Gilliam ultimately chose to use in completing his film was to bring in Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to film the remainder of Ledger's scenes. The way that Gilliam explains this away is quite clever -- Tony's appearance changes every time he enters the imaginarium. I'm not sure if Gilliam lucked out (as much as any director can luck out when a star dies half-way through filming), but it seems that all of Tony's relevant scenes outside the imaginarium were filmed prior to Ledger's death. The transition between actors isn't quite seamless (Jude Law is probably the actor that comes closest to matching the feel of Ledger's interpretation of Tony), and is a tad distracting, but the visuals surrounding them in the imaginarium are so exciting that I moved on from the stuff that didn't work.

About Ledger's performance: it's a good one. A tinge of sadness overcame me watching him on screen. As Tony, he is charismatic, witty and impenetrable. Ledger was in his prime, his seemingly endless pool of talent growing. It is difficult to accept that just weeks, or perhaps days, after some of these scenes, his life force was taken from him. A title card at the end of the film informs us that it was brought to us by "Heath Ledger and friends". The movie's real show-stealer, though, is Tom Waits as Mr. Nick. This is a role the actor was born to play. With his gravelly voice, almost mechanical mannerisms and evil charisma, Mr. Nick is a thrilling villain.

Despite having all the right elements, Parnassus never completely flies. The film sets up way too many stories in its first half an hour, and then spends the rest of its time trying to juggle them. But Parnassus is more about the tricks involved in making an illusion than the illusion itself. The inclusion of the three actors taking on Ledger's incomplete is a perfect example of that. Ledger, of course, was playing his character assuming that he would be in all of Tony's scenes, but the way that Gilliam shoots and edits his scenes and the subsequent scenes involving Depp, Law and Farrell fools us into thinking that that was his plan, all along. Every single movie is a miracle when you consider the perils you face when picking up a camera and wanting to tell a story. Parnassus is a Virgin Mary of a movie. After everything that it went through, it still manages to make some semblance of sense, and also makes us feel something. For that, if nothing else, it deserves and should find an eager audience.