The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a bizarre film directed by Terry Gilliam. He has directed some of the strangest movies out there such as Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Monty Python & The Quest For The Holy Grail, 12 Monkeys and the Brothers Grim.

In his final film Heath Ledger played the role of Tony, a lost man with no recollection of who he is or what he does.  Heath died during his last performance in this film before it could be completed. The director decided that it would be a shame to not complete the movie because of all the work that Ledger had done for the movie. Gilliam wanted to finish the film as a tribute to the great Heath Ledger.

The Imaginarium is a film of two halves. The first half contains the scenes that Heath Ledger manages to complete before his passing and the second half was improvised by the talents of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to replace the late Heath Ledger. The beginning half of the film is grounded in reality and set amidst the depressing urban grey of London, while the second half is set in bright and colorful worlds where the Imaginarium finally comes to light.

They spend the beginning half of the film introducing us to the characters and the dynamic of their relationships. The story is a familiar one that has been used many times, boy has a crush on the girl who is attracted to the new bad boy who randomly just shows up, the father has made bets and deals with the Devil that promises him the fathers first born child at the age of 16. Luckily the director has a talent when it comes to turning old and used story into something completely different that stretches your imagination to great heights.

The drama comes fairly late into the film. You can see that the director wanted to use as many shots of heath ledger as he could to try and keep his dominance as the lead actor of the film and to leave us with his final performance. I feel he did a great job and tied in the roles of Depp, Farrell and Law perfectly into the film where the actors fitted into their roles perfectly. In my opinion that could of changed the order of the roles in the film. It must have been hard for them all to complete the film but they all pulled through in the end and created an amazing movie.

The film takes many twists and turns and leaves you drawn to the screen because it takes you a while to finally work out the ending, and even then you could still be left stumpt. It’s a pity Ledger didn’t finish the film but the entire crew did a good job to put the movie together in the end.