Film Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
A Trippy Imaginarium
By Rianne Hill Soriano
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” has a vaudevillian spirit. It flirts with acid-laced visuals and spins circles around the viewers’ heads. The dizzy spell of visual fantasy and the rickety plotting both impresses and bores.
This send-off film for the late Heath Ledger (technically speaking, though personally, I think it’s his Joker in “The Dark Knight” that is his real great send-off) is a highly imaginative mess shot with boldness and extravagance. It works more like a cobbled collection of ideas rather than being a precious stand-alone story.
Though the visual flare is there, things don’t really hold together well. And this issue already gives consideration to the fact that Ledger only finished half of his work on cam – not to say that the other three guys who finished the work for him are of no good value. It’s just that the film, as a whole, clutters with artsy stuff – than mainly putting enough value to characterization. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is visually packed with grandeur, but the story mishmash makes it tiring to watch many scenes. There is that feeling of being overdone. And at some point, it’s like eating too much of a well-garnished meal that’s out of nutritional value. The film’s storytelling can’t keep up with the trippy elements just packed together to create a full-length movie. It’s fitting more like a series of eye-popping music videos spliced together.
When looking at the film separately into scenes of fantastical spins, it’s generally fine. The anachronistic artistry of director Terry Gilliam makes visually splendid slices of brilliant madness. Rife with hyperbolic displays, it is grounded in a fantasy world rendered through an enigmatic odyssey of graphic invention. Yet, a film should put its various elements as a whole body of work. And in this case, “Parnassus” meanders around confused rhythms that make it more like rambling chunks of effects-filled magic that are mostly self-indulgent and gambling. Though it promises something fanciful at times, this doesn’t really quite add up to one grand sight. It teases with magnificently tantalizing moments, but the resulting film looks more like an outlandish jugging act that both dazzles and bums.
As a big-budget pageantry of shifting CGI canvases and frenetic elements, the big deal effects overpowers the story instead of just serving to spice up and backup the storytelling. It looks overburdened with ideas, visions, and concepts while becoming disappointingly moody at times. They are insisted with too much force and urgency that they are more off-putting than entrancing; more exhausting than exhilarating.
“Parnassus” is like a crammed artist’s mind traversing a shaky framework. Sometimes, the magic works and it’s blissful in its own right. But most of the time, it piles on glitter, grunge, and some mumbo jumbo puffs. It really needs a more coherent storytelling to pack every idea about art and imagination as insinuated in its theme. It seems to have passionate intentions about the contradictions of good and evil as played out in the hearts and minds of its characters. It is an ardent morality tale about the consequences of making deals with the devil. It provides a thematically potent sympathy moving freely to the people’s subconscious. And it feels through the artist’s life journey of pleasure and pain.
Heath Ledger’s Tony boosts the film’s value in his fine performance. It’s a chance to see him acting one last time before resting for good. On a lighter note, he will always be remembered with the great characters in his filmography. And the film is appropriately labeled as coming from Heath Ledger and friends.
Talented as he is (evidently with a number of good films under his belt), Christopher Plummer as Doctor Parnassus unfortunately lacks the intensity to make his character work here. His Imaginarium overpowers the film’s crucial element of characterization – although this issue is more a concern with the direction than what the actor can really deliver for what he is told to do. In fact, Lily Cole as Valentina, Andrew Garfield as Anton, and Verne Troyer as Percy have better characterizations than him. Despite the very tricky material, these three, along with Tom Waits who delivers a fine enough performance as Mr. Nick put some value to let the audience willingly ride along further the Imaginarium path.
The retrofitting of Ledger’s role works well on its own. Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law as the “Imaginarium Tony guys” even make more sense than what the clunks of the story make for the film’s entirety.
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is primarily a visual spectacle. While the film is not entirely successful, it certainly qualifies as a glorious mess of exploring the imagination. Abandoning oneself to the occasionally uneven but visually stimulating images is the best way to enjoy it. And for those who are willing, it is a hollow, shambling, lovable mess of a movie to watch with a popcorn and soda.
![[Valid RSS]](valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
