Imaginarium

While Tideland and The Brothers Grimm (both 2005) were somewhat flawed genre pictures, Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus (2009), is a surprisingly delightful compendium of themes and imagery from the auteur’s back catalogue, especially his loose trilogy of Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), and The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (1988), plus The Fisher King (1991). 

As the head of a strong cast, Christopher Plummer is excellent as tiredly immortal Dr Parnassus who presides over a ‘magic mirror’ portal to whimsically animated realms of subconscious thought, both touchstone anchor and escapist release, to the fabulous primacy of ‘story’ which “sustains the universe” for all humanity. Disrupting its soul-grinding routine, the initially-amnesic ‘victim’ of a lynch–mob, Tony (Heath Ledger’s final bow, though the character’s played in dreamscape appearances by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell), revitalises a rundown carnival caravan - from the appealing charm of ye olde travelling sideshow to the slick freshness of post-modern street-theatre.

Trouble looms for Parnassus’ troupe when he’s reminded that repayment is due soon for his Faustian pact with Nick (Tom Waits), and so his daughter, ‘scrumpy’ Valentina (elfish model, Lily Cole - ‘Lettuce’ in Sally Potter’s Rage) is forfeit on her 16th birthday. There are fantastical Monty Python-ish wonderland visions beyond a stage facade, song ‘n’ dancing numbers, building structures or unrealities fall apart like crooked schemes unravelling, for topsy–turvy surrealism wherein the devil ‘walks’ on clouds and London police wrestle drunken bystanders to passivity, while (un-)lucky souls return to Earth from ‘acid’-trips of blissful exuberance, and gambling for a secret prize of redemption is worth a sacrifice or two.

“Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all immediately.” Please give generously, though - if you enjoyed the show. Gilliam may well have become a sentimental old fool - still believing, passionately, that the grandest of all possible dreams are simple romantic ones, even if they have no guarantee of a happy ending - but, Imaginarium... is a fairy-tale journey that’s worth taking, repeatedly. As an auteur’s medley, this sorely needed to be more than sum of its parts... And so it is!