The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam’s latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is a phantasmagorical morality tale set in modern-day London, but its prosaic hodgepodge plot is all over the map.

The namesake of the film is the wizardly old Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), née Gandolf, who, some thousand years prior, made a Faustian bargain with the devilish Mr. Nick (Tom Waits). Centuries later, Parnassus trades his immortality for youth upon meeting his true love (Lily Cole) by promising Mr. Nick his firstborn, Valentina (also played by Lily Cole), on her sixteenth birthday.  Is Gilliam the Girl Talk of fables?

Boozy gambler Parnassus has a fabulous “Imaginarium”—a rickety traveling show he runs with Valentina, sleight-of-hand expert Anton (Andrew Garfield) and the obligatory angry dwarf (Verne Troyer). The show offers passersbys a chance to enter their imaginations via a looking glass, eventually leading them to choose between good and evil. Costume, makeup and set design are dazzling, but fanciful whimsy alone does not preclude a distressingly tedious first act.

At some point, an outsider (Heath Ledger) comes around and kindly brings the less tedious second act with him. Mr. Nick is bored—who isn’t—and re-propositions Parnassus: first person to win five souls in the Imaginarium keeps Valentina. Fortunately for the motley crew, Ledger’s shady Tony (who, due to the star’s untimely death, will later become Johnny Depp’s, Jude Law’s and Colin Farrell’s Tony in subsequent Imaginarium adventures) knows a thing or two about production value. He glamorizes the outmoded wagon show and relocates for new clientele, and the cash flow begins. Mr. Nick takes note and a riotous race against all time commences.

Imaginarium certainly has, in typical Gilliam fashion, feverishly fantastical worlds and psychedelic visuals. But there were also times when, stuck in that one-note picture show for two hours, I wondered if I wouldn’t be better off with my iTunes visualizer.