One of the Festival’s most anticipated entrants would have to be Terry Gilliam’s "The Imaginarium of Dr Panassus", Gilliam’s most assured and complex work in years.
The central character, Dr Parnassus, played to perfection by Christopher Plummer, has an extraordinary gift of inspiring the imaginations of others. Helped by his traveling theatre troupe, including his sarcastic and cynical sidekick Percy and versatile young player Anton, Parnassus offers audience members the chance to transcend mundane reality by passing through a magical mirror into a fantastic universe of limitless imagination.
However, Parnassus' magic comes at a price. For centuries he's been gambling with the devil, Mr. Nick [a wonderful Tom Waits] who is coming to collect his prize -- Parnassus' precious daughter, Valentina on her upcoming 16th birthday. Oblivious to her rapidly approaching fate, Valentina falls for Tony, a charming outsider with motives of his own. In order to save his daughter and redeem himself, Parnassus makes one final bet with Mr. Nick, which sends Tony and Valentina and the entire theatre troupe on a ride of twists and turns, in and out of London and the Imaginarium's spectacular landscape.
'Imaginarium' can only be described as pure Gilliam, a visual tour-de-force of kinetic energy that explores many themes that have dominated the work of this iconoclastic visionary for decades, themes of regret, age, longing and of course fantasy. Gilliam’s magic mirror transports us into a world of shimmering and dazzling artifice, eye-popping color and our deepest psyches. As an artist, Gilliam strips away the rules of cohesive narrative, replacing structure with indelibly rich characters amidst a dazzling backdrop.
Production designer Anastasia Masaro has done a magnificent job in contrasting the dour world of contemporary London in which the thousand year old Parnassus has inhabited with the vivid fantasy world that represents the purity of humanity. Beautifully shot by veteran cinematographer Nicola Pecorini and sharply edited, the film is hypnotic.
Of course, Gilliam has also elicited such wonderful performances not only by a magnificent Plummer but of course the late Heath Ledger, who proves how incredibly diverse and multi faceted he was. This was the perfect swan song, and his replacements, as it were, segue effortlessly and beautifully, in particularly Depp and Farrell who do justice to bother Ledger and the material, imbuing it with much wit and style.
'Imaginarium' seems the perfect Gilliam film at this time in his life, a rich and profound cinematic tapestry that is original, breathtaking and exhilarating.
