The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

How does that book go? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus it was a spectacular film, it was an underwhelming film. While Terry Gilliam’s gift for the visually stunning did not fail to disappoint for the most part, the performances were lackluster and poorly executed. While Gilliam still seems in full control of his faculties when it comes to barfing up his imagination on the screen, his ability to elicit believable performances from his cast appear to have evaporated.

Alas, dear readers, my mighty heart is breaking. I have always considered Terry Gilliam to be my favourite director, but there can be no denying that there has been a significant dip in the quality of his work of late. Brothers Grimm was a disappointment and a missed opportunity, and Tideland failed to live up to expectations, even if they were set fairly low as it was a film made in the midst of making another film. With this latest installment, parts of the movie had me grinning with recognition as I watched Gilliam weave his trademark craziness, but for a little more than half of the time, I was scrambling for the semblance of a cohesive force tying everything together.

Whenever I’ve tried to talk about this film with friends, and I say that I thought it was a real disappointment, they all nod condescendingly and say, “Well, you know they had some problems there.” I shake my head and say, “Really?! I hadn’t heard! I mean, how could I possibly hear about something like that when all I do is cruise through movie news all day long? Heath Ledger is dead? What?” I then take a deep breath and remove my sarcasm hat and point out that my problem with the film are the scenes that Heath Ledger is actually in. Most specifically, the scenes in that industrial wasteland where they park the Imaginarium on their off-hours. The acting I witnessed in those scenes was painfully reminiscent of improv games I used to play in High School. There was no structure, and the actors all seemed to be figuring out what to say as they were saying – in a bad way. My suspicion is that that group of scenes at that location were shot over a very short period of time, and that Terry probably said something like, “Okay, in this scene I want you to give him a hard time about his whistle, and I want you to try to get the whistle back from him. Alright? Everyone ready? Go!” No script, just a rough idea of what to say and do. For some actors, directors, movies, TV shows, that can work. It does not work here.

The scenes inside the Imaginarium on the other hand (other than Colin Farrell’s) were breathtaking and carefully structured, probably because they were made after Ledger’s passing and had to be plotted out to be able to explain Heath’s changing face. These journeys into the mind of Doctor Parnassus, or Mr. Gilliam if you will, were exactly the kind of thing I had been craving for years and were almost enough to sustain the quality of the film. Almost. While they might have been majestic, and they were, they couldn’t detract from the fact that those scenes were away from the actual narrative of the film, the place with shoddily acted scenes where we’d have to keep going back to.

The question I’ve been asking myself is whether or not that’s always been Terry’s problem, and that he’s been so blessed by working with talented people for his entire career that we’ve never noticed. I’m sure that Johnny Depp could have totally carried Fear & Loathingon his own – with occasional assistance from Benicio. I mean, all Terry would really have to do is create the crazy backdrop and just let his actors play off it. Looking at Time Bandits… hmmmm… that could have been done with very limited structure. Brazil? Nah, that required some serious scripting and guidance. 12 Monkeys? That movie would have turned into a singularity without a script to keep everything in place. So maybe it’s something that’s happened in the last little while. Maybe it’s something that Gilliam’s been toying with, and he’s been so bogged down with production disasters to notice that there might be other elements at play that have kept him from his former glory.

The Verdict: Was it worse than Brothers Grimm? Nope. Did it come anywhere near the mastery of 12 Monkeys or Brazil? Hell no! I’m glad that it left the door open to Terry trying again for a high profile picture, but maybe the 21st century is the time for Mr. Gilliam to make his way into the art-house.