THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

By
Elizabeth Marchetti
07/11/2009

By carrying the cross of Heath Ledger´ s notorious death in January 2008, the highly anticipated ´ Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus´ had the premise of booming the box office before its filming actually ended. Casting Johnny Depp, Collin Farrel and Jude Law as replacements was a smart move and contributed to masses (of ladies especially) flocking in to watch it.
Whether or not Terry Gilliam´ s latest product lives up to the hype is hard to tell- it could and should have been a masterpiece, but for some odd reason it just was not.
We see Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), an immortal visionary who travels with his circus all over modern times London, guiding people´ s imaginations as they enter his magic mirror. He lives in fear of his daughter Valentina´ s (Lily Cole) sixteenth birthday, as he has exchanged her for his immortality in a pact with the Devil, Mr Nick (Tom Waits). The troupe also includes hand expert Anton (Andrew Garfield) with his comical sleights, and dwarf Percy (Verne Troyer). In mysterious circumstances, they save a stranger´ s life, Tony (Heath Ledger), who in return helps them to promote the circus thanks to his skilful wit. As the clock ticks, Parnassus fights to save his daughter´ s life against all odds, in exchange for five souls.
The surreal plot rich of vividly classic, fable-like elements is charming and the film is visually stunning: when we explore the characters´ imaginations, the movie suddenly comes to life with pastel coloured forests, seas, rivers, snakes and clouds. Gilliam´ s style encompasses these qualities in his style grandly.
However, the film is surely meant to be an epic tale about the eternal struggle between nature and nurture, innovation and decadence, imagination and rationality, good and bad, which is difficult to empathize with.
The events in the plot are scattered around- what starts as a question, loses itself into five different others, leaving you a bit flustered. It is clearly a case of quantity over quality. The script is at times too cheesy, repetitive and vague. And Lily Cole doesn´ t have the warmth maturity yet to portray a loving bond performing with Plummer in her first major role.
Heath Ledger´ s performance is poignant and magnetic, but sadly his co-stars´ screen time is limited to around 20 minutes.
In spite of the beautiful execution, the emotional ties with the heroes and heroines are too weak to be worth your enthusiasm. As the lights turned on after two hours, I had the uncomfortable feeling of having been dragged on for too long without any real purpose.