Climbing Higher Pictures

The following was written almost two months ago and is only now being posted due to the longest embargo I’ve ever had as a reviewer. After the death of Heath Ledger, few thought Terry Gilliam‘s latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, would live to see the light of day. Gilliam has had some of the worst luck of any successful filmmaker when it comes to casting catastrophies and his much publicized doomed production of Man of La Mancha starring Johnny Depp. But when Mr. Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell stepped in, without pay, to help him finish his film as a tribute to Heath, the story changed entirely. Now with a release date set for Christmas of this year, does Gilliam’s latest rise above its traumatic production and stand among his past work as a masterpiece?

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A

If you’ve ever seen a Terry Gilliam movie, you know that there’s something about his perspective on the world that sets him apart. His projects often suffer from thematic and visual excess, the kind of overzealous creativity that pushes far beyond the subject matter at hand and often overwhelms the story he’s trying to tell. Pretty much since his failed Don Quixote movie with Johnny Depp, Gilliam hasn’t been able to find his past success, in part because he hasn’t had the kind of story concept that can absorb his vision. Luckily for him, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is just the kind of story he was born to tell. It’s an epic yet subtle film, supportive of its subject matter while simultaneously relishing in the quiet character moments that had all but vanished from his recent work. The cast is uniformly wonderful, and the visuals, though occasionally cheesy, have an otherworldly brilliance to them that will make you forget that you’re watching a movie.

Of course, despite all that, the first thing you probably want to know is what the quality of Heath Ledger’s final performance is. I think people will be surprised by its subtlety, expecting, I guess, a Gilliam version of the Joker. His work is terrific overall, and the character gives him a lot more room to breath than his past leading man roles. Though this will not be the performance that Ledger is known for, he is consistently inventive and believable throughout, giving the whole piece an energy it wouldn’t have had at the hands of another actor. In an odd twist of fate, his death opens up the film to yet another level of creative brilliance, as Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell each step in to help “complete” his original performance. Through a great plot device, each actor feels completely at home in their little version of the world, while simultaneously nailing their line readings in such a classic Heath Ledger tenor as to be creepily accurate to his style of speech. The diverting images of the character are held together by a respect for what Ledger started, and it shines in each of his supporting performers. Though it would be interesting to see what kind of movie Gilliam would have made if tragedy had not struck, I think that the solution to that particular crisis may have been one of the best narrative choices in the film.

The film also doesn’t feel remotely incomplete. Ledger had finished the vast majority of his “real world” photography before his death, making the effects sequences the only places where changes had to be made. The actual lead of the film is Christopher Plummer, who gives one of his best performances as the ancient and enigmatic Doctor Parnassus. You feel for him at an incredibly emotional level, and it is his pain which allows Tom Waits to be so wonderfully sinister as The Devil. You get the sense, not unlike Guillermo Del Toro’s work with the Hellboy films, that Gilliam likes this world better than our reality, and that the characters within it are more real to him than you or I ever could be. The writing demonstrates his love for these people and the amount of emotional investment he has in each and every one of them. If you don’t find yourself pulled into the world in front of you while watching this film, then I don’t really know what to say to you. Enter the Imaginarium, regain your faith in humanity, and exit with your imagination firmly reattached to your sub-conscious. There’s enough brilliance in there to tide you over for years to come.