Terry Gilliam's latest, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is perhaps more well-known for being Heath Ledger's final film than for anything else. Labeling it as such obscures that the movie is also one of Gilliam's best.
The titular character, portrayed by Christopher Plummer, is the proprietor of a performing group that travels in a double-decker horse drawn carriage. With him are his daughter, Valentina, Anton, who does sleight of hand, and a dwarf named Percy. As the film opens, the carriage pulls up outside a tavern which vomits out drunken young adults onto the street. One in particular heckles the performers and causes a ruckus. He ends up running into the mirror at the back of the stage. He stumbles through and finds himself in his own imagination where he must choose between good and evil. His choice is the latter, in the form of a pub, and, upon entering, it explodes.
We learn that Parnassus has made multiple deals with the devil, Mr. Nick, and the latest is that, in exchange for youthfulness in order to ensnare the love of a woman, any of Parnassus' children would become Mr. Nick's upon their 16th birthday. One night as the carriage crosses a bridge, Anton and Percy save a man hanging underneath it. Although rescued from death, Tony is stricken with amnesia. And so he joins the group as their barker. As the film progresses, we learn about Tony's shady past and witness Parnassus' attempt to outwit the devil and save his daughter.
Gilliam's films are famous for their fantastic worlds. Here he adds CGI to his toolbox to create the imaginations of people after they pass through the mirror. They are refreshing for their originality as they offer chances for fun as well as looks at the interiors of characters. These landscapes of people's minds provide visual nourishment but they are also notable for the rather restrained way Gilliam uses them. For Imaginarium is less about fantastic worlds than the characters who inhabit the mundane world of 21st century London.
Plummer imbues our protagonist with a weariness of Shakespearean depth. Indeed, Parnassus is like a hands-off Prospero. Instead of controlling others through magic, he offers magic as an option. Ultimately those who traverse the looking glass must look within and decide between good and evil for themselves. Tom Waits was a superior choice for Mr. Nick. With his gravelly voice and thin penciled moustache he doesn't look demonic but there's certainly something unsettling about him and his beguiling ways.
I choose these two characters not because anyone in the cast gave a bum performance – they were all great – but rather because this film is about, amongst many other things, adults growing old. Valentina is a teenager. She has her beauty, as we see in the scene when the Imaginarium is revamped but she is, like all people her age, wanting to create her own identity independent of her parents. Being so young, she has little experience to draw upon or to reflect upon. Tony is important mainly because he mirrors Parnassus in certain ways. For instance, he's made his own wagers with evil.
I found Parnassus to be an intriguing character on many levels. He opens people's minds to themselves (perhaps in imitation of Gilliam); he is something of an anachronism struggling in the modern world (also perhaps like Gilliam); he is part of the eternal confrontation between age and youth and man versus gods; and, having had such a long life, Parnassus has much to reflect upon and regret.
But not all is doom and gloom for our protagonist. In a flashback sequence, Parnassus tells of how he used to be the equivalent of an abbot in a monastery. His monks spent their days constantly telling a story which kept reality going. This, I think, is a lovely and, ultimately, hopeful view of ourselves. The fabric of reality may not hang in the balance, but humanity is certainly propped up by the stories we tell one another whether it be in cinemas or face to face.
In these ways, Parnassus is probably Gilliam's most complete character.
I tend to classify Gilliam's films into two groups: those that establish a "real world" and see characters venture into the fantastic (e.g. - Tideland, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Brothers Grimm) and those that are more rooted in the fantastic to begin with (e.g. - Munchausen, Time Bandits, Jabberwocky). The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus straddles the (admittedly indistinct) line between these two. The sequences in London are not overshadowed by those behind the mirror and, instead, the two complement one another.
Imaginarium's closest relative is surely Gilliam's 1988 film The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen. That movie also examined age but did so in large by having a young girl as protagonist for contrast. Here Gilliam is able to confront the theme on its own terms and, in certain ways, Imaginarium benefits from this. A wider swath can be cut when not having to bring thematic material back to a child. The film succeeds in addressing adult themes by using devices that are often thought of as childish – imagination, fantasy, and the like.
Gilliam is going to have a tough time topping this one, to my mind.
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