Can you put a price on your dreams? (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (DVD))

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (DVD)
Date:	06/11/09 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant cast, amazing special effects, simply magical

Disadvantages: Not for everyone, plot lost in all the magical aspects

A 1,000 year old immortal, Dr Parnassus, makes his money by entertaining the public in a mysterious theatre show. Along with his daughter, Valentina, and helpers Anton and Percy, the team travel around in their wagon which unfolds to be their stage. The audience are given the chance to step inside a magical mirror where Dr Parnassus will control them and allow them to step inside their own imagination.

But when the Devil arrives at Dr Parnassus' door, he claims that he has come to collect on a bet they made many years ago, and his win is Valentina. The Devil offers Dr Parnassus a new deal - through his mirror, he must find and give the Devil five souls. So the unlikely team, including the new arrival of Tony, a mysterious man with no memory, set about to find five willing people to step inside the mirror in the hope of saving Valentina.

~ Cast ~
Dr Parnassus - Christopher Plummer
Valentina - Lily Cole
Anton - Andrew Garfield
Percy - Verne Troyer
Devil - Tom Waits
Tony - Heath Ledger
Tony No. 2 - Johnny Depp
Tony No. 3 - Jude Law
Tony No. 4 - Colin Farrell

For any Heath Ledger fans it is wonderful to watch him in his last film where he puts on an amazing performance, playing another strange character as he did with the Joker. However, the way that his character is first introduced into the film (found being hung and almost dead under a bridge) as well as any other references to him dying throughout the film, weren't very nice to watch so I was already tearing eyed only a few minutes in. As the film hadn't been finished when Heath Ledger passed away, the character of Tony was given three new faces. This actually worked really well and in fact I think it worked out even better than just the one actor playing the part, as it conveyed that the character was two-faced, well actually four-faced.

The other characters of Tony, although they make the film even weirder, also make it quite exciting and funny and every one of them looks surprisingly similar - I sometimes had to look really hard to find out which actor was actually playing Tony at that point. They also strangely manage to sound the same, despite all being from different corners of the earth. Johnny Depp has a fleeting part, the shortest of all four actors, but he is the charmer and I couldn't help smiling at the funny faces he pulls and the way he manages to charm a woman. Before I saw the film I did actually think that Depp might have been a better pick for Ledger's part as he's amazing at playing these weird and wonderful characters. Jude Law I thought was the poorer of the four, but maybe that's purely because I generally dislike him anyway. His character is more of a dreamer and more over the top and expressive than the others and seems to be a little crazy. Colin Farrell has the biggest part, apart from Ledger of course, and he brings out Tony's true character with a sexy and rouge-ish charm but also an angry and selfish personality.

I think Heath Ledger plays Tony very well and very naturally in a way that makes us think Tony isn't entirely with it and doesn't really know what he wants, but then his three other faces convey Tony's true feelings and all of these characters are more dreamy and over-emphasised.

The other actors are all great in their respective roles. Christopher Plummer plays the old and mysterious drunk Dr Parnassus brilliantly and he reminded me of characters such as Dumbledore and Gandalf so I took an immediate liking to him. Andrew Garfield plays Anton, a typical normal boy, who is in love with Valentina and curses himself for saying the wrong thing to her and becomes jealous and defensive when he sees a spark between her and Tony. Verne Troyer has a very entertaining role as Dr Parnassus' best friend the midget. Tom Waits, although he doesn't exactly look like what you would expect the Devil to look like, manages to act smarmy and dark and has a horrid smile that turns you off him instantly. Lily Cole is wonderful as Valentina and fits the role perfectly. She is beautiful and a little strange and her pixie-like looks and figure fit with her gypsy and fairy like costumes.

The plot is a fairly slim one and the majority of the story centers around Dr Parnassus' mirror and the imagination inside, rather than the actual story itself. But to be quite honest the plot wasn't even really needed and I found myself forgetting what the main story was and just enjoying all the weird events that were going on. And there was an awful lot of other things going on to distract you and you have to keep your eye on the screen the whole time or you'd just get lost.

I thought the entire film was made brilliantly. When in the real world, all the characters were very realistic with cockney accents and realistic problems, and we see real-life things such as drunken Londoners stumbling out of bars and people shopping in Homebase(!). At first I didn't like the cockney accents and the feeling of normality, but there was no falseness about it at all and I ended up loving this aspect of it. However, there is a complete transformation when the characters go inside the mirror and their whole world is turned into a completely magical place. Anything is possible inside the mirror and each character sees exactly what is in their imagination such as a world where anything can be shot at and destroyed, from the mind of a little boy, and a world filled with giant shoes and pearl necklaces, from the mind of a sophisticated woman. The special effects are amazing and make this fantasy world seem so wonderful and magical that you really want to find out what your own imagination would look like.

My husband, Alex, generally doesn't like fantasy genres and I didn't think he'd particularly enjoy this before we saw it. And I was right. He kept sighing heavily and laughing throughout at the ridiculousness and craziness of it and when the film had finished the first words out of his mouth were 'That was s**t!'. If you don't like fantasy films then I really wouldn't recommend this, as it is very out of this world and you have to have a pretty big imagination for it.

I however, loved it, and as soon as I'd come out I wanted to watch it again. This has to be one of the best fantasy films and, although very very weird and very very crazy, it is so enjoyable and simply magical to watch.

Running time: 123 minutes
Certificate rating: 12A
Director: Terry Gilliam

Summary: A wonderfully magical film