The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

[polkablues]

Talk about amazing posters...

It is a cool poster, but isn't that girl supposed to be 15?  It's a little too Polansky for me to actually want to hang it on my wall.


"Why don't you have a seat?"

[matt35mm]

Lily Cole is 21.  Hang away!

[RegularKarate]

isn't that girl supposed to be 15?

Yeah, there's just a moment in the movie where she lies and says she's 15.

[Alexandro]

Talk about amazing posters...

It is a cool poster, but isn't that girl supposed to be 15?  It's a little too Polansky for me to actually want to hang it on my wall.


"Why don't you have a seat?"

only if you feel like fucking her.

[polanski's illegitimate baby]

I feel like fucking her... but, i can justify that urge. Anyway, how the hell was this movie? Has anyone seen it? I can't believe it's not getting the wild rep around my town. It is only being played in 1 out of like 10 theatres and they have already moved it to a smaller screen.

[Pubrick]

it's worse than INLAND EMPIRE.

i think everyone is just pretending it didn't happen so the dark knight can officially be heath's last film.

[polanski's illegitimate baby]

I went and saw this, in spite of my better judgement and, unsurprisingly, came out just a little tired and unenthusiastic. It might've been the rainy weather or it might have been the awful acting of "mini me" from Austin Powers. Paradoxically, it wasn't the high-cheek-bone jail bate Lily Cole that muffled the movie for me. She was actually a pleasure to look at and did pretty well for her first film. Acting aside, the film is a little slow and conservative with all the cool shit. Generally, everything that happens outside the "imaginarium" is bland; and, the contrast of seeing Jude Law walk on a mile high ladder to seeing an old wizard and a nazi midget is horrendous. Seriously, the whole duration of the film you pray for going back into the imaginarium like a heroin addict as it's the only chance for a euphoric sensation. The whole idea of getting seduced AND cheated by the devil in your own imagination is neat and offers some viable justifications for schizophrenics but little to semi-sane individuals like myself who somewhat make sense of temporal life. Would it be cruel of me to describe the film as a bunch of schizos wallowing in their "good" and "bad" worlds? It's really a great effort with a wonderful cast but what the hell is the point? Because if it's "don't be Tony the Liar" then i would like to tell you to fuck off kindly. I certainly hope not to do that...Maybe i misunderstand... I will think about it some other time.


Edit: Spoilers prolly... It must have been the lack of empathy that the film induces. No one seems to be in genuine peril for a long time, minus the girl soon-to-be devil's bitch and the old man who is "doomed" with everlasting life. So i ask myself, how can i feel bad about some dude, who lives forever, losing one of his many-possible daughters in the most awesome way possible --by letting her dance with the devil? This film is too obscure to understand for anyone who is past 3rd grade and has some idea of the world we live in. I should've waited 20 years to see this, so i could bring my kids, who wouldn't understand shit anyway since it is a morality tale for adults and has some twists like the multifaceted liar Tony who appears with a different face every time in his journey to the imaginarium from which you understand that he is actually a "bad guy." It's kind of like a music video pretending to teach you something in that it creates an artificial dilemma and then solves it, still, leaving you feeling incredibly unsatisfied for some more honesty and life. But fuck it, look i watched Avatar all the way through without even considering how lame the plot was and that's because James Cameron made me visually satisfied. This film comes short on both sides, the substance and the form.

[Reel]

Man, Terry Gilliam is so lame. I don't think I like any of his movies...entirely, there are always cool parts in them but I can't follow his storytelling, it's too abstract, too crowded. I think I'll check out that Arcade Fire show he did and it'll be the only thing of his I like.

[diggler]

The Fisher King was crowded?

I think one of my issues is that while his films maintain the same sense of humor, they just stopped being funny. Imaginarium took me three sittings to get through. The only reason i gave it that many chances is that even his films that are a bit of a slog to get through end up winning me over in the end. This one did not. There are so many great ideas floating around but he really needs someone to harness it all for him. He would've been better off leaving this one on the shelf because even if he makes incomprehensible bombs for the rest of the career, he could have always maintained that this was his lost masterpiece.  Now it's just a forgettable mess like everything else he's done in the last decade.

[SiliasRuby]

God, I fell asleep for what felt like forever during this film and it turned out to be only 5 minutes. I really wanted to like this but like most of Gilliam in recent years, it suffers from lack of inventive storytelling. Some dots just weren't connected for me and I think that the original premise of this movie would have worked better if it was a series on either showtime or HBO.

But oh, those dazzling colors that Terry brings forth. I think he should start directing music videos for indie hipster bands. Are you listening Spoon?

...Although it was nice to see Heath in ANYTHING let alone something this odd.

[Alexandro]

It was horrible.

Really, there is no other adjective for it. Everything is fucked in this movie. How can you fuck this up? Tom Waits as the devil? Impossible to fuck up. Only Gilliam with his tired approach and condescendence for the world outside of his "imaginative" perspective can.

This could have been great.

[squints]

Yeah i love a lot of gilliam's stuff, Brazil being a favorite and Time Bandits being with me since childhood, but this movie is an absolute train wreck. Terry's never one to shy away from a convoluted plot but at points i felt the actors were just improvising knowing full well none of this makes sense. Its like watching overzealous but really bad Shakespearean actors blowing their wad on an underfunded production of The Tempest in a shitty local park, at noon on a sunday....you get what i'm sayin...

[samsong]

This one is a big lugubrious, but the story is ultimately pretty involving and touching. It's just the damn effects. They didn't have enough money to make them look really amazing, and so they should have just gone the practical route. The occasional models and practical effects are great.

glad amongst the maelstrom of hate that someone else seemed to enjoy it.  the first half is pretty rough but it hit its stride for me once the heath character starts hosting the imaginarium.  i for one sort of enjoyed how terrible the effects were as they are zany as fuck and totally in keeping with gilliam's imagery, and thus more phantasmagoric than anything else in a similar vein.  they struck me as the far less endearing equivalent of the animated interjections in the monty python stuff.  in the end i found this to be surprisingly personal for gilliam and moving because of that.

[socketlevel]

I really liked it as well.