15. Inside Terry Gilliam’s head
One goes to a Terry Gilliam movie burdened with expectations. It will be dazzling (Brazil), clever (12 Monkeys, inspired by La Jetée), surreal (Fisher King), frenetic (Baron Munchausen), weird (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and only sporadically coherent (Tidelands, The Brothers Grimm). You may not be able to explain it, but you will like it.
Gilliam’s latest, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, fulfilled all my expectations but one. It is coherent. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is the leader of a vagabond circus troupe that includes a wise little person (Verne Troyer, who was Mini-Me in the Austin Powers flicks), Parnassus’s beautiful daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), and Anton (Andrew Garfield), who is in love with Valentina. The Imaginarium is a “mirror” into another world, whose contents are determined by the traveler’s imagination. Parnassus turns out to be a very, very old man given to making wagers with the Devil (Tom Waits, who else); he’s about to lose the latest one. Then the troupe meets a man hanging by the neck under a bridge, and he has plans.
Imaginarium is the film Heath Ledger was doing at the time of his death, and it takes three fine actors to fill the vacancy: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell. Having four actors play the same role usually leads to confusion, but in this case it actually makes sense—the character’s appearance depends on the person who’s looking at him. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus feels like a big, fantastic pop-up book: the spectacle overwhelms the story, but do you really care?
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 21st, 2010 at 10:26
i do! i do care. movies are made for entertainment and anything that affords detachment from reality is entertaining enough for me. just seen fear&loathing in vegas for the nth time. psychedelic!
January 21st, 2010 at 12:06
Thank you, but please read the last sentence again.
January 21st, 2010 at 14:46
just did. well in that case i don’t. i guess gilliam’s got me twisted.
January 23rd, 2010 at 02:41
i just love his movies! they’re surreal and imaginative. i especially like Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys and Brothers Grimm. if i were a director, i’d probably be like Terry Gilliam.
January 23rd, 2010 at 23:37
Off-topic, but still surreal: Fatboy Slim is coming out with a double-CD set and DVD about Imleda Marcos and her relationship with a servant from her childhood. The title: “Please Don’t” (Huwag Po?). It will be released on Feb. 23. Just in time for the EDSA Revolution anniversary! Wow!
January 24th, 2010 at 21:07
This is the project he was working on with David Byrne, the reason DB came to the Philippines, how I met DB, and why Manila is in his Bicycle Diaries.
January 24th, 2010 at 21:18
When Colin Farrell came on the screen (excluding his picture in the Ideal Home magazine), every girl/woman/lady in the audience sighed. I watched it at Eastwood last night.
January 25th, 2010 at 08:54
Don’t forget the various Monty Python references – in some scenes, I was doing double takes and asking, “Is this ‘Whither, Canada?'”
Terry Gilliam, you never disappoint.