The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

By Nate Storey

The last film of Heath Ledger’s career. The newest film directed by the unique and distinctive Terry Gilliam. A film that was almost shut down following Ledger’s death, but saved by the inclusion of three new actors to play one part. These are the things I knew about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

when I walked into the theatre. I guess that’s not entirely true. I had seen the trailer, and had skimmed a few reviews, which were largely mixed. And so I walked into the theatre a bit trepidatiously.

In parts, the film surprised me, confused me, but most importantly, as these things go, entertained me. Most impressively, other than the performances, which I will get to in a moment, was the way Gilliam handled Ledger’s demise.

The film tells the tale of the immortal Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), who centuries ago was visited by the Devil (played by a wonderfully sleazy and smarmy Tom Waits), and was granted the ability to guide the imaginations of others in order to engage the Devil in a wager between the powers of the imagination and the powers of temptation. Parnassus leads a traveling performance troop, whose stage is centered on a mirror, through which spectators can travel into a world where their imaginations take form around them. However, the stakes of their wager includes the clause that any child of Parnassus’ will belong to the Devil when he or she turns 16, and as fate (or the Devil, as we discover) would have it, Parnassus’ daughter, Valentina, is nearing her birthday. Because of this, the Devil enters in a new wager, the first to five souls wins, and Parnassus can keep his daughter. Just in time, it seems, the troop happens on a mysterious individual (Ledger) hanging from a London bridge with strange symbols on his forehead.

Fortunately for the film, Gilliam had completed filming the scenes in the real world with Heath Ledger, and following his death, he was able to rewrite the script and used Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to film those scenes that take place inside the mirror as the troop attempts to sway five souls to the power of imagination. The transitions are seamless, and while surprising, are not jarring, as I feared they would be. Gilliam’s rewrites made them seem natural and part of the story, more than just a plot device to explain or cover Ledger’s absence. It does lead to curiosities over what the story was before the substitutes were introduced, but more out of interest than dissatisfaction with the current film.

The story is not perfect, however, and focuses, as do many Gilliam films, on the visuals and spectacle of the film. It is not the story’s fault that it is not as strong as the spectacle, but more something that one comes to expect from a Gilliam film (see Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Brothers Grimm, and more for examples). None of these are bad movies— Brazil in fact is seen as a cult classic—but all are extremely visually stimulating, and it is difficult for the story to keep up with the absolute strangeness of the physical nature of the film.

Parnassus does raise interesting questions and puzzlements, which seem to necessitate repeat viewings, and while strange in places, the oddity is not off-putting like some of the more ridiculous films can be. The viewer wants to see the film again to answer the questions about fate and hope and belief and, most of all, given the film’s topic, imagination. What is the higher power, imagination or temptation? And what role does choice and free will play in this conflict? That is the weighty issue at the heart of Doctor Parnassus, though the film forces the viewer to make the ultimate decision.