The Imaginarium of Doctor ParnassusImagine yourself at a crossroads--a "high road" and a "low road", if you will--where you make a choice, between good and between evil, the choice we all make. Only, almost never in life is that choice black and white; on the contrary, it is often layered and thick with context, and only in our imagination can we see the right answer from the wrong...maybe not even there. Morality is an old game, played for millennia, and the oldest of players include some of histories most infamous betting men.
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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a game of souls played between the ancient, eponymous Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer)--he is literally thousands of years old and immortal--and the ever-beguiling "Mr. Nick" (Tom Waits), a.k.a. the devil. Since their first encounter in the monumental monastery where Parnassus and company were responsible for telling the eternal story to keep the world from ending, the devil has been prodding and manipulating his opponent into playing his game of wager. He has been baiting him into becoming an opponent who could give him some entertainment--and if only inadvertently--aid him in his efforts to corrupt and destroy the lives of human beings for all time. Like all good hustlers, the devil let him win his first game, earning the bittersweet prize of immortality, something which would assure Mr. Nick of a solidly hooked player in the doctor. Parnassus has mystical powers; namely, he can invoke the powers in the imagination of his audience to envision an arcadian world of beautiful vistas and realized dreams, simply by meditation...and a few stage props. His travelling stage resembles a circus show, operated alongside a few devoted assistants. There is his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole)--who is devoted to her father--and Anton (Andrew Garfield)--who is devoted to Val--not to mention "Percy" (Verne Troyer), his diminutive and brutally honest companion through time. The plot feels achingly like that of a fairy tail: upon Val's sixteenth birthday--which she coyly hints at to Anton as the "age of consent"--she is to be given up per a bargain Parnassus has made with the devil, a fact which the doctor has been too ashamed to regale unto his daughter, as they travel from street corner to street corner, outside the pubs in London around closing time, trying to impress upon the unwashed masses the miracle of the imagination. It is important that the location of these theatrics is referred to as an "imaginarium"--a place where one's imagination can get some exercise and is the attraction. And the land beyond the mirror is turned to suit the tastes of the inhabitant; although should there be two souls present, the dominant imagination will out the other.
One mysterious evening, the band experiences an ominous event, when they witness a hanged man beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge. Contrary to the already dissolute Parnassus' protestations, Val and Anton rescue him. His identity is a mystery--or so he claims--until he begins to piece together that his name is Tony (Heath Ledger), a man who has a unique panache for stagecraft and easing the money out of the palms of an audience seeking fulfillment. Tony is a charmer--and a frightfully convincing one, because we want to like him; we feel pity for his circumstances and the events which led him to dangling by a rope. Parnassus sees a message carried in his arrival from Mr. Nick, having divined the "hanged man" tarot card--an art of divination commonly linked to the devil--recognizing this as an invitation to play another round of souls--the first to five wins. But Parnassus' pervading addiction is the hold which the devil maintains over him; like quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink, and yet Mr. Nick consistently tricks Parnassus into playing along, all for the sport of it he would have us believe. Anton becomes jealous of Tony's charm and good looks, and how easily he and Val get on, leading him to make foolish decisions which cause more trouble than he intends. A brief conversation between Parnassus and Percy has the doctor joke about offering Val as a prize between Anton and Tony, depending on who can bring in the five souls he needs, underscoring that Parnassus' addiction--like all addictions--cannot differentiate friend from foe, and is hurtful to those we love. Parnassus suffers from his choices, but is not opposed to subjecting those from his audience to make those choices between good and evil as he invites them into his mirror. The imaginarium is a literal reflection of the choices that we make, and how they make us, filled with blissful scenes of beauty and delight, and the hellish badlands marking the realm of Mr. Nick. And these locations in the mind also remind us that they, too, are stories told by master storytellers--Parnassus and Mr. Nick. The devil comes to silence the story that keeps the world going, because he doesn't want anyone telling a story that is not his own interpretation, his imagination. Though Parnassus fumbles and hits bottom repeatedly in his endless life, in his soul he tells a story which resonates with the world as beautiful, even if they do not understand it. Tony embraces this, even if he doesn't understand it, and is fascinated when he crosses the threshold to aid in the process of guiding souls. Tony's own appearance changes repeatedly as he sees himself in the imagined world into the faces which others wish him to be, the sign of a skilled con man at work. Within the mirror, Tony is instead portrayed by actors like Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, all handsome men with honeyed words for their feminine quarry and crocodile tears when it counts. While this stylistic choice was necessitated by the unfortunate passing of Heath Ledger prior to the completion of the film, it has the serendipitous quality of subtly conveying the two-faced nature of Tony in an unspoken way. The moral of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is that if the choices we make in life were as absolute as those we see in the mirror world, it is likely that most of us would not choose a path of damnation. But we see what we want to see, and it's important to watch where you step when you make choices in life, lest you find yourself but another notch on the devil's cane.
Recommended for: Fans of fable about the importance of the choices we make and how they affect the lives of those we care about. It's a colorful and vibrant movie, and features some great performances, especially by Heath Ledger, for whom the film is dedicated.
One mysterious evening, the band experiences an ominous event, when they witness a hanged man beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge. Contrary to the already dissolute Parnassus' protestations, Val and Anton rescue him. His identity is a mystery--or so he claims--until he begins to piece together that his name is Tony (Heath Ledger), a man who has a unique panache for stagecraft and easing the money out of the palms of an audience seeking fulfillment. Tony is a charmer--and a frightfully convincing one, because we want to like him; we feel pity for his circumstances and the events which led him to dangling by a rope. Parnassus sees a message carried in his arrival from Mr. Nick, having divined the "hanged man" tarot card--an art of divination commonly linked to the devil--recognizing this as an invitation to play another round of souls--the first to five wins. But Parnassus' pervading addiction is the hold which the devil maintains over him; like quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink, and yet Mr. Nick consistently tricks Parnassus into playing along, all for the sport of it he would have us believe. Anton becomes jealous of Tony's charm and good looks, and how easily he and Val get on, leading him to make foolish decisions which cause more trouble than he intends. A brief conversation between Parnassus and Percy has the doctor joke about offering Val as a prize between Anton and Tony, depending on who can bring in the five souls he needs, underscoring that Parnassus' addiction--like all addictions--cannot differentiate friend from foe, and is hurtful to those we love. Parnassus suffers from his choices, but is not opposed to subjecting those from his audience to make those choices between good and evil as he invites them into his mirror. The imaginarium is a literal reflection of the choices that we make, and how they make us, filled with blissful scenes of beauty and delight, and the hellish badlands marking the realm of Mr. Nick. And these locations in the mind also remind us that they, too, are stories told by master storytellers--Parnassus and Mr. Nick. The devil comes to silence the story that keeps the world going, because he doesn't want anyone telling a story that is not his own interpretation, his imagination. Though Parnassus fumbles and hits bottom repeatedly in his endless life, in his soul he tells a story which resonates with the world as beautiful, even if they do not understand it. Tony embraces this, even if he doesn't understand it, and is fascinated when he crosses the threshold to aid in the process of guiding souls. Tony's own appearance changes repeatedly as he sees himself in the imagined world into the faces which others wish him to be, the sign of a skilled con man at work. Within the mirror, Tony is instead portrayed by actors like Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, all handsome men with honeyed words for their feminine quarry and crocodile tears when it counts. While this stylistic choice was necessitated by the unfortunate passing of Heath Ledger prior to the completion of the film, it has the serendipitous quality of subtly conveying the two-faced nature of Tony in an unspoken way. The moral of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is that if the choices we make in life were as absolute as those we see in the mirror world, it is likely that most of us would not choose a path of damnation. But we see what we want to see, and it's important to watch where you step when you make choices in life, lest you find yourself but another notch on the devil's cane.
Recommended for: Fans of fable about the importance of the choices we make and how they affect the lives of those we care about. It's a colorful and vibrant movie, and features some great performances, especially by Heath Ledger, for whom the film is dedicated.