This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

Though Terry Gilliam may call himself a film director, he has much more in common with the ringmaster under a circus big top. A Gilliam film is a psychedelic experience (think Fellini on hallucinogens), a surreal carnival ride that, like dreams, doesn’t even try to make sense. While Gilliam’s storytelling has always taken a distinct back seat to his visuals, his latest, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is his zaniest film since The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Imaginarium, to borrow a phrase from the film, is “a world full of enchantment for those willing to see it.”

Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is a doddering, grey-bearded, drunken old man who lives inside of a massive gypsy wagon that converts into a stage whenever a crowd begins to gather. With him is his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole, who has a child’s cherubic face on what is most certainly a woman’s body), days shy of her sweet 16th birthday; his diminutive assistant Percy (Verne “Mini Me” Troyer); and Anton (terrific relative newcomer Andrew Garfield), who, though he’d never admit it aloud, is very much in love with Valentina. But Parnassus is no ordinary entertainer. He is a monk of an ancient order who can steer the imaginations of others and in so doing keeps telling “the eternal story” without which the physical world would literally grind to a halt. Don’t believe him? Step into his mirror—a portal, as it turns out—to an alternate dimension where every whim of your fevered imagination finds expression. Usually mirrors reflect reality back at itself; this one is a passageway through it.

But Parnassus lives with a terrible secret. Many years ago, he made a deal with the devil himself (Tom Waits in a bowler hat), trading his as of yet unborn daughter for the gift of immortality. But now, as Valentina’s birthday approaches, Parnassus sees the error of his ways. The devil makes him a counter-proposal: the first person to seduce five souls gets to keep Valentina. Just about this time, Parnassus and his team rescue a young man in an ice cream white suit named Tony (Heath Ledger) from certain death. Though cursed with amnesia, Tony turns out to be quite the salesman and soon the race for souls is on. But Tony has a secret big enough to swamp all their plans—if only he could remember what it is.

The Wonderland world behind Parnassus’ mirror conforms to the imaginations of its occupants and includes Willie Wonka-esqe candied landscapes, rivers that transform themselves into snakes, stilts that reach into the clouds, hot air balloons in the form of human heads and homely Russian mothers who turn out to be cyborg killing machines. Anyone familiar with Gilliam’s work won’t be surprised by these images. Anyone in love with Gilliam’s work will find them intoxicating. More than perhaps any other film he’s ever made, Imaginarium’s fantasy elements feel as if they are cobbled together enmasse from the Monty Python animated sequences Gilliam used to create. Imaginarium is constructed almost entirely on Python architecture. And just as the animation then gave his imagination unfettered ambition, so too does he manhandle CGI into reproducing his every hallucination—for better or worse.

That Gilliam’s films are trippy joys to watch is not in dispute. But the unevenness of his plots is often enough to induce vertigo and his almost patent refusal to craft a coherent narrative (combined with including every loony image and idea that pops into his carnival of a head) can be an exhausting experience, even for those who relish his work.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is Health Ledger’s final performance; he died in the middle of the production. Gilliam shut down the film for several months and returned with a brilliant, if convoluted, idea—three different actors (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell) would take over for the late star, each representing him in an alternate dimension behind Parnassus’ mirror. It is an experiment that, by and large, succeeds, though Ledger’s ghost haunts every frame of the movie.

Cast: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell
Director: Terry Gilliam
Rated PG-13 for violent images, some sensuality, language and smoking.
Running Time: 122 min.

© Copyright 2010 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.