Last night I watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with my boyfriend. I remember wanting to see it when I first caught wind of it. But when Heath Ledger passed away, being one of the main characters, the production was halted. For a while I thought they would simple cut their losses and stop but they decided we will shoot certain scenes where he goes inside the imaginarium with different actors. That led to the casting of Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and of course Johnny Depp! The changing of faces was to show how he was "two-faced" or how other people really wanted him to be. Because one of the main rules was "two people don't go inside at the same time". They can...and it happens often through the film. The problem is one person's imagination will over come the other weaker one. The main plot of the story is Doctor Parnassus bets with Mr. Nick, he's the devil so to speak, and when he was younger bet any child he bore would become Nick's property at the ripe age of 16, guess who's turning 16 in two days VALENTINA!!! Parnassus's daughter, go figure. Mr. Nick being a true betting man strikes him another deal that the first to 5 souls wins Valentina. Now I want to throw something out to you if you ever get the compulsion to watch this fantasy film. You'll see rather soon I think that Mr. Nick, the devil, is not evil. He's actually for the most part, aside from betting, a good guy...GASP! Yes it's true.
Good points; I absolutely loved the casting they did, the graphics and costumes were just out of this world. It had fresh faces (new actors)
Bad points: I thought they did so well through the whole film and then they got to the ending and just...gave up. The whole story, in my opinion, just seems to fall apart. I don't want to get into detail because if any of you do want to watch it the ending won't be ruined for you. But if you watch it and the ending isn't fabulous...you at least expected it.
I would give this movie a 7.5 out of 10!
I do really want to see the movie, not really for the story but for the eye-candy, but I hope the plot does keep me intrigued.
ReplyDeleteI saw the movie, and I really appreciated the aesthetics of it. And I LOVED Tom Waits as Mr. Nick. He's so cool.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of confused why Heath Ledger's character had so many faces. I mean, I thought it was because he was "two-faced", but he ended up having 4 different faces in the film. Then I thought that each face represented different sides to Heath's character, but then I also felt that some of the personalities were similar...
oh that's too bad to hear about the ending...but I still very much want to see this!
ReplyDeleteJackie: yeah I think they did a few "stretches" to make the film work. And it ended up being a wee bit confusing. I think that the first face: Johnny was his indifferent side. The Second face: Jude was what he wanted himself to be. and then the third face: Colin was his true face??? or his true nature...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've heard mixed opinions on this film!I'm interested to see how they worked in all the extra actors. I need to see it. I didn't know Tom waits was in it either! Cool!
ReplyDelete