it's 4:02 AM. i'm still awake and thinking about The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which i saw nearly 12 hours ago at the Metro 4 theater. i'm not sure why i can't fall asleep, but it might be because i can't get this fucking film out of my head.
it might be a bit early to call, but at the moment i'm going to call this one of the essential films. steven ray morris and other Avatar haters beware, i award Avatar the same status, but for entirely different reasons. maybe in 5 years i'll feel pretty silly for lavishing such extreme praise on films i've just seen hours or weeks ago, but at the moment i feel justified. like Avatar, Parnassus is also important from a visual perspective, but where it really shines is as an intellectual film experience.
i wrote up my thoughts extensively on imdb, and rather than try to restate my thoughts again here i'll just paste them below. i think we're now in an important time in film history, where many of the best films are literally being stomped out by the very people that paid to produce them, inexplicably well-produced and then given a pocketful of change for advertising and crapped out by distributors into 100 theaters nationwide. what the FUCK are these people thinking?
we have to watch these films, and show our support for film as art as well as entertainment. if your eyes widened at the ridiculous length of this post and you instantly refused to read this whole diatribe, take only this message from me: SEE THIS FILM IN THEATERS and talk about it to anyone who will listen if it moved you in any way. this films reminds me a lot of The New World and The Assassination of Jesse James, (pretty similar to each other, as well) which are some of the best films ever made, that almost no one saw, that were often misunderstood by those who did, and that i hope will some day be appreciated. the "wide" release of Parnassus has been pathetic so far and i consider myself lucky that i've even been able to see it. the gap between film quality and public reception has become downright shocking over the last few years and often leaves me quite literally slack-jawed. when i see films like this i look around an empty theater and wonder, "what the fuck are they putting in the water? has the whole goddamn world gone INSANE?" meanwhile bullshit comedies about talking animals solving crimes in a G-rated fashion and shit take the #1 spot at the box office weekend after weekend after weekend. i'm pretty sure that water fluordation conspiracy theory is true, because 99% of people and their should-have-been-abortion children have become utterly retarded. literally.
my original post:
*some minor spoilers ahead*
having just come from seeing the film a few hours ago, i'm ripe with things to say. when i heard about this film, and especially when i saw the trailer, i thought "this looks like it will be my favorite film ever." while i'm still dwelling on that thought, i think it just might be accurate. i LOVED it in a way that's difficult to express in words. but try i shall. some of you may already be thinking "YES, EXACTLY!" others, maybe "oh god, fuck this guy!" but bear with me.
i've seen most of Gilliam's films. i love the guy. i either really like or love his work, and even in the case of Don Quixote, his unfinished work (if you haven't seen Lost in La Mancha, check it out and revel in one of the most interesting documentaries of all time). love or hate his films, he always brings a truly original voice to cinema that must be respected for its ambition and perseverance. i highly value the visual/spectacle aspect of filmmaking, so i find it unfortunate that most of his fantasy films and/or sequences in his earlier films have been hampered by low budgets and production values and cheap effects. maybe it's the liberal in me speaking, but in the case of Parnassus, money (and technology, of course) went a long way in improving the work and solving problems that pure creativity alone probably could not. god bless the producers that had the vision to fund this film. give them a round of applause for being willing to wait YEARS for a return on their investment. please reward them by seeing it over and over at your nearest arthouse theater! =)
this film doesn't even attempt photorealism, yet the world of the magic mirror is mostly quite believable, and the film looks damn good throughout. while David Lynch captures the mood of dreams better than anyone, i think Gilliam has almost equaled him in this respect, and with this film he's captured the look and feel of a dream better than any film i've yet seen. that's one thing i think is sorely lacking in fantasy films. most fantasy films ironically strive to instill strict realism into a fantastical world.
to take the Lord of the Rings as an example (one of the greatest sagas/adaptations in film history, IMO), the films are essentially a conventional war drama with magic (simplified a bit, i know) and you just take magical creatures and wizards for granted as another weapon in an otherwise realistic world. once the rules of the fantasy universe are established, you totally believe in the film as a real world, where everything happens exactly as you see it on screen. you could see the ring of power as a metaphor for atom bombs, for example. if i'm not mistaken, Tolkien saw it as a metaphor for machine guns, chemical weapons and aerial combat, things he saw as a soldier in WWI that gave the wielders of these weapons nearly absolute control of their enemies.
but for me, unlike most "fantasy films", Parnassus touches the heart of what fantasy really means.
i don't think of fantasy as just a corny literary and filmic genre of imaginary places and creatures wrapped around a conventional story; rather, it is a place of extremes. extreme indulgence of imagination and emotion, the most intuitive aspects of the human psyche, where real things are taken to the next level, and the next, and the next, until they take on a nearly unrecognizable form (e.g. The Cell) that often don't make sense to anyone but the author, yet appeal to the subconscious of many spectators in an inexplicable way. but why?
why does Tony change form in the magic mirror? (i'll ignore the fact that it's because Ledger didn't live long enough to film these scenes. it was a happy accident in any case, as these scenes work beautifully with the other actors) why the jellyfish with hand tentacles and the hot air balloon with the doctor's face in a hexagonal pattern? why the flying carpets and silly hats? the checkered floors and the gallows on a floating patch of land? why tom waits and his beautiful gravelly voice as satan? who can really say, except terry gilliam himself? i read some analysis that claims the film has some illuminati imagery, and i was convinced that there is at least SOME validity to this claim, which only adds an extra dimension of deliciousness, IMO. maybe on some level, every single mystical element of the film has some basis in reality, some rational explanation. but does the answer really matter? the mystery of their meanings is half the fun. as a spectator, the best thing we can hope for is to at least be entertained and interested in what's happening.
all of this adds up to a film that, as a whole, makes little sense, once the credits first roll. but there's so much food for thought, and the film will likely grow in meaning the more you see it, the more you learn, and the older you get. to me, this is one of the most important criteria in deciding what is a great film. and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is certainly that. if you have any means of seeing this film at the moment, take the time, call your boss and ask for the afternoon off; call your friends and tell them you heard from me this was truly a film worth seeing. send me an angry email if you disagree.
we're looking into the mind of Dr. Parnassus (and Terry Gilliam), and i suspect many people recognize a little bit of his magic mirror in their own dreams. for whatever reason, i find these things intriguing and i happen to find mine and Gilliam's aesthetics to be particularly sympathetic in this piece. he appeals to my lower brain, i suppose. even aside from that, the film itself is a spectacle to behold, on an extradiegetic level (sorry to get all film-theory on yall). just the fact that 4 of the hottest actors in the world (popularity-, and um, looks-wise, if that's your thing) basically stepped in for bit-parts as a single character that turns out to be a total scumbag, in one of the least-seen films by one of our generation's greatest directors is remarkable in its own right. this venture takes BALLS of the heaviest order.
after my first viewing, i admit i was a bit underwhelmed by Ledger's performance after his UTTERLY epic and career-making turn as the Joker, but repeat viewings will hopefully shed further insight into his performance. nevertheless, in tandem with the wonderful contributions of Depp, Law, and Farrell, his performance of this beautifully complex character will shed some light on his characterization. i hope the coldness/ offness of Heath Ledger's performance isn't just due to the fact that i assume that he was falling apart emotionally and physically at that point from addiction (sorry to interject this piece of reality, but it can't be avoided. on the upside, post-modernist theory allows for some rather interesting takes on art)
if you've seen this film already, you're one of the very few people that will have seen a film that a wider cult audience will be drooling over for the next several decades or more. hold on to your ticket stubs, folks. you'll smile when you find it among your 50-year old keepsakes in a box in your garage. you'll proudly tell your kids and grandkids, "i was one of the very few people on earth that saw this film when it was first released." whether you love it or hate it, i challenge you to tell me you regret the experience.
now that i've finished my thesis-length essay, i'll leave it to you to contribute to my self-indulgent musings. how about you all? what does "fantasy" mean to you? does this film fit the criteria? am i the only one that has dreams eerily reminiscent of this film?
a pre-emptive thanks for your thoughts.
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Being a pretty big fan of BRAZIL, THE FISHER KING, TIME BANDITS and all of Gilliam's work with Monty Python, I made the mistake of going into THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS with moderately high expectations, and was sorely disappointed. I really disliked the film, and have no desire to see it again.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the film was mostly an incoherent mess, and while it was it was fairly "whimsical," it was not nearly charming enough to keep me entranced for its duration. I'm willing to give Gilliam a considerable amount of wiggle room as far as plot is concerned, but how would you pitch this movie? I had no idea what the hell was going on for 75% of the time, and I defy anyone to tell me who the real protagonist of the film was.
What this film really needed was a throughline for the viewer to hang on to, something concrete and tangible to follow through this clusterfuck of CGI and out the other side. And on the topic of visuals, I really was unimpressed by the look of the dream sequences. At best, they looked like a knockoff of Mark Ryden's work, but on the whole, they just seemed like someone's mildly interesting screen saver. But I blame this on a lack of sufficient funds. If you're gonna make a "special effects" movie, you're going to need the cash, and while Gilliam's movies haven't been the most expensive to make, they very rarely seem to break even (but which movies do?).
While I myself was not a huge fan of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies (why did those books have to be movies?), I think that it's interesting that Bryan brings up the notion of "rules" in filmmaking. One of PARNASSUS' problems was that it had no real rules established at the onset. We didn't know what was or wasn't possible in the universe of the film, and thus we were simply held captive (as opposed to willingly captivated) by its whims. By rules, I don't mean traditional three-act structure. I mean the social, physical, or ethical laws that establish what can and cannot happen in the film. Without rules, PARNASSUS seemed to fall into anarchy pretty early, and instead of being involved, I was bored. I (as I assume many viewers) had a hard time suspending my disbelief and "what-the-fuck" reflex, and was thusly turned away from the film instead of being absorbed in its story.
But this is in no way ragging on Terry Gilliam. He's not so much a genius as much as a mad scientist. For every "eureka" moment, there's bound to be a couple Frankensteinian fuck-ups that end up horrific monsters that sully your name as a legitimate creator. And while I wouldn't say PARNASSUS is such a dramatic or monumental horror as that, I would have a hard time seeing the good in it.
Joshua is wrong, just putting that out there (You didn't like LOTR? You just destroyed all your credibility in that statement alone).
ReplyDeleteWhile people seem to think the movie wasn't coherent enough, I really just think that people weren't paying enough attention. I understood everything just fine. And why exactly does a film need one main protagonist? If you can hold onto multiple character arcs, there's nothing wrong with a movie being about more than one person's journey (white boy becoming blue face, again *cough cough, Avatar*). Heath's performance didn't really stand out to me, but he didn't feel like the main focus anyway. Parnassus and the devil were more the point of the film if you really want to get down to it.
A wonderfully complex film with a lot more on the surface than most people will ever give it credit for (sadly). Honestly, GIlliam has been honing this art direction since his days as a Python and I felt like this movie was probably the ultimatum of his ability to convey it. I don't know why anyone would criticize the CG work in this movie, it was gorgeous and didn't feel the need to go for photorealism (cough, Avatar...). My father and I went and saw this the day it went into wide release and it's not often that my dad genuinely says to me, "that was wonderful" after we see any movie...
I dare say that if this film does not move you in any way, there is a spark of genuine life missing from your soul (or whatever one would like to call it).
Oh, and make sure you stay till the end of the credits.