Terry Gilliam is at it again and this time he takes us inside of a mirror that shows you what your inner most imaginations look like. I’ve followed Gilliam’s career for some time and find that he’s consistently good. It also seems like bad fortune follows him around when it comes to his productions. Watching the documentary “Lost in La Mancha” we see how everything that can go wrong goes wrong as he tries to shoot “Don Quixote”. As we all know, in shooting this project the sad death of Heath Ledger happened.
Doctor Parnassus has a traveling “freakshow”... This movie is gonna be way too hard to explain. All you really need to know is that Parnassus made a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits). The deal consists of him getting eternal life but in return he has to give his first daughter when she turns 16 to the Devil. There’s a way he can get out of it and it is by retrieving five souls before the Devil does.
Here’s where the imaginarium comes in. Parnassus lures people in to a mirror were the visitor sees there innermost imaginations. In their imagination they get two choices, a good and a bad. If they choose good the soul goes to Parnassus, bad souls goes to the Devil. Well, Parnassus hasn’t done too good until he gets help from Tony (Heath Ledger) who he finds hanging from a rope under a bridge.
It feels like there were scenes missing in this movie. That’s understandable considering the main star died during the shoot. I do feel however that they got it together somewhat and turned the material they had into something good. The movie shows what a good actor Heath was and it will make you feel sad at his passing. It has a great array of characters and Gilliam is really a master of making his frames interesting.
Guy’s Rating: For what it’s worth this movie was good, weird, fun and a great memory of Heath Ledger.
Girl’s question mark...
I am also a huge Gilliam fan. I don’t think he makes consistently good movies, though. Blame it on the ill luck, or whatever, but sometimes Gilliam’s genius just isn’t received well by the public - maybe because we don’t get it.
Although this movie was interesting, some of the story line was so nonsensical it was hard to watch. There was so much happening sometimes, I felt like my eyes were hurting from not blinking in order to take it all in. This occurred mostly during the story telling scenes between father and daughter, and at the end when Tony finally shows his true colors.
Also, the whole background story on the character Tony seemed contrived, as though Gilliam had lost his edge on making interesting characters and instead had just gone with the money/loan shark/russian mobster deal. A tad boring in such an elaborate fantasy. Or maybe that wasn’t the story at all, but the scene with the ladders was worked in after Heath passed away, and they had to make due with it. Either way, I was a bit disappointed with Tony’s story.
Girl’s Rating: Sure, watch it because it’s Terry Gilliam, but I can’t guarantee you’ll like it.
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