Cool News
Albert Lanier steps into Gilliam's IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS!
HIFF 29: YOU MAY SAY I'M A DREAMER
by Albert Lanier
When I was a child, I used to always hear from adults-whether teachers or other older authority figures I had no use for-that I should "use my imagination."
I always found that an interesting phrase and as a kid I would have all kinds of fantastical dreams and fantasies which I will not go into detail about here.
Its no wonder I ended up a writer-though, the wrong sort of writer, imagination wise. Try using your imagination when writing about a Mayor or Governor and you'll be wind up living in tent cities in Sacramento or Ontario, California given the nation's precarious economic status.
There's something about the imagination that withers and dies with adulthood. Life becomes a series of meetings and appointments not swordfights with villains and rescues of maidens in towers.
The world of imagination has always been a preoccupation for director Terry Gilliam though not in a simplistic childish sense-with the exception of his early film TIME BANDITS-but a richer, sophisticated adult driven world.
In THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS, Gilliam fuses the imagination with the craft of storytelling to produce a film about the wondrous vistas and ideas trapped in a gritty, grimy workaday reality.
IMAGINARIUM opens with a shot of a city block in London-where this story is set-and the scenes reveals a small team of horses at the front of a wooden contraption that should either cut up and burned or put in a museum. The camera tracks to two sleeping homeless men before cutting back to the contraption.
A panel comes down and in no time a portable theater-looking like something out of Commedia Del'Arte or the traveling theater in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD-emerges.
A man dressed like the ancient Greek mythical figure Mercury appears and does his spiel hoping to attract a crowd to this-the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.
The reality is that this ""imaginarium"" is a crude stage with painted trees and a "mirror" through which people can enter and is located right in front of nightclub named Medusa ( nice punny name there).
Onstage is the doctor himself- who looks more a Hindu holy man than any doctor I know-and his fetching daughter Valentina who has a wondrous bosom. I say that because a drunken club goer offers his admiration for her splendid cleavage (though not in those words) and chases her into the "mirror" or portal to the imaginarium to try to show her how much he "admires" her.
I wont say what happens to this bloke although its probably not a good idea to have a beer in this illusory world.
This traveling troupe soon sets off through the streets of London as their theater/vehicle is steered by the diminutive Percy, a man prone to pragmatism who is the only part of this "company" who can cut through the crap and tell it like it is.
While traveling over a bridge, they see the shadow of a man in the water below. It appears that he is hanging beneath the bridge. It turns out there is a person danging from a hangman's knot under the bridge.
We later find out that his name is Tony-though he claims at the time to suffer from Amnesia-and he is the former head of a children's charity.
Tony soon becomes part of this motley groups of performers trying to convince the good doctor that his changes should be implemented.
For one, taking the portable theater to upscale shopping centers and having rich and upper middle class women experience the imaginarium experience.
Valentina falls under his spell which infuriates Mercury-real name Anton-who has fallen in love with Valentina and is resentful of Tony's oily charm and smooth pseudo-sincerity.
However, the main pot thrust of the film is the escalating series of wagers that Parnassus has had with Mr.Nick aka the Devil over a number of years.
Parnassus is over 1,000 years old and he is tired of living on and on and on. He makes a wager with Mr Nick that he can get five souls to go through his imaginarium. If Parnassus wins, he gets mortality. If he loses, he must give Valentina over to Mr.Nick.
Readers may notice that I have not mentioned any of the fantastical CGI-created and shaped images in this film, the visions of the imaginarium.
I'm not going to either. I could ladle on rich adjective over creamy adverb in describing some of these sumptuous images but I feel doing so would be akin to revealing who the killer is in Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd."
It is best to watch IMAGINARIUM for yourself to experience this odd and wonderful visual palate as I did with a packed-to-the-rafters audience at the Hawaii International Film Festival on Friday, October 23.
IMAGINARIUM features some nice performances. Christopher Plummer is terrific as Parnassus, playing the part of this wondering dreamer and imagist with a KING LEAR like fragility and sense of weariness and regret.
The late Heath Ledger-probably the reason most people will see this movie-shines here in the part of Tony (supposedly named after British Prime Minister Tony Blair-no wonder I didn't like the character). Ledger plays Tony to a T-at least in scenes he filmed before his death.
Ledger's part is finished by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell who play differing versions of Tony within the imaginarium. Of the trio, Farrell is given the best scenes and not only chews the scenery but swallows it whole.
Andrew Garfield does a nice turn here as Anton and wide eyed Lily Cole is charming as Valentina with scene stealing performances from Tom Waits as Mr. Nick and especially Verne Troyer who shines as Percy.
IMAGINARIUM was written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown, the team that co-wrote Gilliam's notorious features BRAZIL and-a personal favorite of mine-THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHHAUSEN.
IMAGINARIUM isn't in the same league as BRAZIL and MUNCHHAUSEN, ambitious films with stronger stories and highly potent imagery.Gilliam's newest film is-despite its visuals-a simpler tale a heart, more intent on wondering the streets of urban London in near-nomadic like existence than challenging entrenched powerful authority (BRAZIL) or choosing to hold on to dreams in a time of war and destruction (MUNCHHAUSEN).
Here, Parnassus holds on to the power of stories. My favorite scene in IMAGINARIUM comes when Parnassus and Mr.Nick first meet in an enormous Tibetan Buddhist type temple in some wintry locale.
What are you all doing, asks Mr. Nick. We are telling the same story over and over again, replies Parnassus. Why? Because it keeps the universe functioning.
I loved this idea. Yes, even a cynical, jaded film critic like me liked this concept.
So long as the story doesn't begin "There was an old woman from Nantucket..."
-
+ Expand All
-
Oh, yeah!
-
I'm there.
-
...after a showing of the film. Looking forward for both to be enlightening...
-
Word I'm getting from friends who saw the premiere in London say this is a terrific film. Any word when this opens stateside?
-
...Lanier.
-
Man that just made my day. Seriously I would've thought Johnny Depp and Jude Law would've done betterm but then again maybe imo they have, I'll see it Christmas and make up my own mind.
-
Oct 25, 2009 8:40:24 PM CDT
Ledger plays Tony to a T-at least in scenes he filmed before his
by the funketeer
Were there some scenes he filmed after his death?
-
The movie Troy McClure did in the Simpsons after he married Homer's in-law, I think it was called the fantabulous contraption of horatio huffnagel....? Anyway I sincerely hope this is good.
-
The Academy is already talkin about Oscae nom for Health. http://sickpicks.blogspot.com/
-
how you're a legitimate writer, film critic and so on, you might consider that a real writer would know "fantastical" offers bugger-all over "fantastic" and more to the point is the redundant version, whether it's in the new dictionaries or not. Usually I wouldn't be such a nazi, but seeing as you were sorta pompous about inserting yourself and your credentials into the "review", you deserve to be pulled up.
You might also want to proof-read your stuff if you're such a professional - "wondering the streets" indeed. Obviously there's no-one at AICN (and considering Harry gets paid, he's a professional in the true sense of the word, but not in the layman sense) that performs that function. They can't even tell the difference between singular and plural. But then, neither can your average newsreader or newspaper journo these days. I'm all for conversational writing, but that's not what you where getting at. And to Funketeer, right on!
I'm sure if TBers actually read this they'll get all pissy as usual, but hey - in the world of TB whiners, I'm the least of the arseholes...
Rant over. -
I doubt it.
-
We can only gope that rhis dilm nake as nuch as RSJ did.
-
And I even have a spell check.
-
when the hell do the rest of us get to see it??
-
Sent him a review of this last week, but like my review of The Road, he didn't use it for some reason...
-
In the "Sao Paulo International Film Festival". YOU ALL MUST SEE IT, ALL OVER THE WORLD. For Terry, for Ledger, for Waits, for Plummer, for Cole, for Troyer, all great. Of course, everybody cheered when Depp showed his face, but both Farrell and Law were great too. But Harry was right in his review. The real scene-stealer is Andrew Garfield. He is doing next a movie with another rising star, Carey Mulligan (superb actress in An Education, another film I saw in the same festival). Great times for movie lovers indeed. Cheers.
-
Everybody will want to love Ledger in this movie (and he is truly great, he will be missed), but Garfield makes you sympathize, feel sorry, mad angry, smile and, finally, be really happy about his character. Great range indeed, dudes and dudettes. Cheers.
-
Where. We're.
-
passion, intelligence, wit, charm, nicely written. I didn't get to fuckin hear about what the reviewer ate for lunch, or how he's oogling such and such actress, or hear 15+ namedrops from the interviewer in every single interview these AICN guys do. Its like the interviewers have to prove something to who they're interviewing, every damn time. We're all sick of it you, know (Quint).
-
I hate to say it, but...there's no humour, no heart, and the pace and plotting are just incoherent. I've rarely felt so unengaged with a film or the characters in it. I really wanted to love it too.
-
Look Plummer was great, Lily Cole was surprisingly good but will no-one dare mention the dodgy as hell accents that Heath was doing?? Anyone?? Half Mockney, half Aussie and a pinch of bad drama school. Everyone else in this film was fab, but remember Heath for Dark Knight....not this. That asides, still a very good film! Flawed but good!!
-
Fucking horrible...who thinks sentences are paragraphs?
-
I was never impressed with him when I saw him in Knights Tale or Brokeback Mountain or whatever. He killed in Dark Knight though.
-
He's tired, worn out, his performance is awkward, and he looks completely out of place. If you're a Heath fan, skip Imaginarium and treasure your memories of the Joker instead.
-
Yeah, that was annoying. Gotta agree with zargo and white vader.
-
...in the review...apart from a handful.
-
When that came out, I remember thinking what an expensive, confused comedown that was after his career peak of BRAZIL...
-
It is => it's
And can you write a sentence without a parenthetical? -
Now that was a good movie.
-
Oct 26, 2009 10:15:36 AM CDT
Funketeer brings the whipping to the "Professional writer".
by conspiracy
Best observation of the morning...
-
Doctor Lao was a GREAT movie.
-
the "review" of a movie is just a long synopsis of the movie. lame.
-
"IMAGINARIUM opens with a shot of a city block in London-where this story is set-and the scenes reveals a small team of horses at the front of a wooden contraption that should either cut up and burned or put in a museum."
-
Good one. Along with Toby's girly man painkiller induced giggle.
-
Best Gilliam film ever!!
Greatest modern Fairy Tale ever!!
I love Time Bandits!!!!
David Warner still scares the shit out of me in his H.R. Gieger headpiece!!
Connery as the guardian Angel hero through time
Visual genius!!!
A Perfect movie -
Rental. Home theater.
-
Oct 26, 2009 4:16:28 PM CDT
I thought the Imaginarium was an Olsen Twin's apartment
by glory_fades_immaxfischer
-
his co-writing credit. It also looks like he had a hand in the costuming department.
-
...watching Monty Python's Almost The Truth all last week. This review, while it contains some interesting points and opinions, is written terribly and contains far too much of the usual AICN "you should like my review because I'm special" bs.
-
AICN should use this Albert Lanier guy more often. He really sounds like a real smart guy, instead of MrBeaks and Massawyrn's febbles atempts at intellectualism.
-
... your deadpan is vicious!
-
Can't believe I forgot to put that one in!
And add one more to the Doctor Lau love.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 209 total posts 207 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 160 total posts 97 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 144 total posts 77 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 68 total posts 68 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 64 total posts 60 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 480 total posts 55 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 53 total posts 50 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 118 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 182 total posts 27 posts