The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

On Jan 21st, my wife had just finished having surgery. In her hospital recovery room, she was trying to relax so I decided to put the TV on to see what was playing. It was a news program and when we saw what they were reporting, the air left the room. That’s how we found out about Heath Ledger’s untimely death. At that time, the Dark Knight had yet to come out to blow us all away and reinforce that we had lost a major talent that was really starting to come into his own. Then we heard about the project he was on when he passed. Terry Gilliam always has had a history of troubled productions so to hear that Heath was halfway through filming Terry’s new film when he left us was, sad to say, no surprise. So the question became, would Mr. Gilliam find a way to overcome this and be able to finish his film in a way that is not only cohesive but (dare we dream?) may remind us of the Gilliam of old?

He did.

In the tragedy of losing his main actor, Gilliam compensated by hiring Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to finish Heath’s role. Then he creatively retooled his story and in doing so, I believe, made it a better film. The use of the new actors to represent the different re-imaginings of Tony (Heath Ledger) as he passes through Dr. Parnassus’s mirror really brought a new sensibility to the movie that was not forced as it easily could have been. In fact the whole thing felt very fluid, as if that had been the way he’d meant for it to be the entire time. Changing the story actually opened up the story into deeper realms that would have otherwise not been seen.

The film opens on the streets of London where what could be extras from The Fisher King litter the streets. In fact, Parnassus often reminded me of “Fisher King” from the locations and costumes to the use of Christopher Plummer, the father of Amanda Plummer, one of the main characters in “King.” I guess Gilliam’s tastes haven’t really changed that much in the last 18 years. Mr. Plummer, as always, adds gravitas to whatever he’s playing and here in the title role of Dr. Parnassus; ancient monk, teller of mystic stories and dealmaker with The Devil; he has a desperation and a slyness to him that is easy to root for. Ye Olde Horned-One, or rather Ye Olde Bowler-Hat-Wearing-One, is played by Tom Waits (another Fisher King alum). The story goes that eons ago Dr. Parnassus made a deal with him and the devil granted the doctor a never-ending life, which anyone who’s seen any serious vampire flick can tell you is always a double edged sword. In exchange, the good doctor must give up his first born on her 16th birthday, which happens to be just a few days away.

Parnassus, along with his band of miscreants, drives around the dodgy parts of London in a traveling circus van, trying to scrape together money by putting on shows. This is all color and filler and we never really see what they were planning on doing if anyone actually paid them. All the characters surrounding the doctor; the daughter played by Lilly Cole looking like a cross between Christina Ricci and Betty Boop but with red hair, the assistant played by Andrew Garfield – a new comer but one with a great amount of potential, and Verne Troyer, as the traveling circus’s midget and the doctor’s closest friend (who is as old as the doctor but did not age as badly as the doctor nor had to make any deals to do so, for some odd reason); are all part of the act and all do a well enough job. Gilliam, however, wisely left most of the heavy lifting to Plummer and Ledger.

The weakest part of this movie is the CG. I don’t know if Gilliam just doesn’t know how to work with CG or if he didn’t have enough money to do it properly but anything that was CG ended up looking like a 1990’s Fruit-Roll-Up commercial. There is, on the other hand, a third option that this was exactly what Terry was going for. After all, Doctor Parnassus’s “mirror” was just two sheets of foil suspended from a doorway and to walk into the mirror meant to walk between the sheets of foil. Pretty low rent. Therefore the horrible CG may have just been part of the plan, a way to show that inside the Imaginarium, reality is unneeded and everything becomes hyper-fantasy. However whenever there is a great deal of animation on screen it can get very distracting and if they were going for something more unpolished or nonsensical, Gilliam should have just gone all the way and done some of his old Python animation. It’s easy to see what he was going for, as they were great concepts, just poorly executed.

That said, I do believe that this is a return to form for Mr. Gilliam and let me say, “Welcome back” and “It’s about time.” This will not capture the general audience or garner any sort of awards, but since when has Gilliam been concerned with that? It is, however, a nice big step in the right direction for him and if he is planning on giving Don Quixote another go, let’s hope that film, or whatever comes next, will continue this trend. The hook that will bring most people to see this film is a chance to witness “The Last Heath Ledger Film.” If they do, that’s fine. He will not disappoint any of his fans or any newcomers with this movie. Heath’s performance is full of brilliance, charisma and all the things we’ll miss so much. It’s a good way to go out.

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