Unravelling Madness

If there's a good reason to go and see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, it's that you get to see everything that Terry Gilliam can do very badly, as well as a lot of things he can do very well indeed.

A lot of people would say that isn't a particularly good reason to go and see and film, and in most cases they're about right. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is as baggy as its title, and has all sorts of problems. The fact that its star died half-way through the filming didn't help, and if anything it's astonishing that the film saw the light of day at all. It does so using a particularly clever conceit which doesn't really damage the narrative in any obvious way, although the scars probably run deeper than it might seem on first viewing.

It's set in contemporary London, albeit a twisted and gothicised version that showcases muddy alleys rather than shiny dildo-shaped buildings. Christopher Plummer is Doctor Parnassus, an old bloke who wanders around with a circus-in-a-van, accompanied by ludicrously hot daughter*, that bloke who was a college student in Lions for Lambs, and Mini-Me. Mini-Me and Peter Dinklage are the only small actors who anyone casts in anything these days, but Mini-Me gets the nod here 'cos he's weirder looking. Anyway, people step through his magical mirror into a warped thing-that-I-refuse-to-call-a-dreamscape; as it turns out, Christopher Plummer is in the middle of a warped bet with the Devil, played (although one suspects the actual acting required is minimal) by Tom Waits, and the stakes are-

Well look, you get the picture. It's all over the place. This apparent confusion isn't unusual for a Gilliam film; his worlds are deceptively well-drawn but his narrative has always been ramshackle. The problem is that there's way too much of weird-looking people glugging on bottles of non-specific drink in a caravan, and not enough plot development. The film goes pretty well until they find an amnesiac Heath Ledger hanging off a bridge, and then just seems to lose momentum. One suspects that, due to his star's death and a need to increase his presence, Gilliam has included scenes that would otherwise have been cut. There are scenes that feel like offcuts, to the extent that Heath Ledger's generally-pretty-good cockney gives way to Australian for entire sections; it feels like a cast rehearsing. Meanwhile, there's a great amount of emphasis to the mystery of what Plummer's deal with the Devil is, but it's cock-obvious from ten minutes in.

Still; the scenes in The Imaginarium do work. There's heavy use of CGI, obviously, but Gilliam (as an animator) knows how to do that shit in a way that very few directors do. It's heavily stylised, and not a million miles away from a 3-D rendition of his old Python cartoons. Don't tell me that doesn't interest you.

The decision to cast three actors as Ledger in different aspects works surprisingly well; it would seem Ledger died in the gap between location work and the green-screen stuff, so at least it's neat. All three are actors who aren't averse to showing up and doing a turn, which is exactly what's required of them here. Johnny Depp does a more urbane, yuppified take on his Cap'n Jack Sparrow shtick - but it works here, and doesn't make you want to shout "Johnny Depp is an utter cunt" at parties**. Jude Law is very very poor, and it's easy to forget that he used to be as good a character actor as Britland has produced; too many romcoms have blunted him to prettyboy status, and he's plain awful. Colin Farrell gets the meatier stuff and does it superbly; it's a cracking cameo, and while his accent wanders from London to Dublin via Australia, he's so at home that it barely seems to matter. For all that, you can't help what Ledger would have made of the opportunity to overact like this - his performance is generally solid, and he does keep you guessing about motivations.

If nothing else, though, Terry Gilliam does demonstrate that ability to create a world that we so sorely miss. His London is identifiably contemporary, but the way he's created a London where magic might happen is reminiscent (if not quite as good) as his portrayal of New York in The Fisher King. There's a scene in an upmarket shopping arcade that is recognisably real, yet like something you'd imagine in Alice in Wonderland. He also goes for a warped circus aesthetic - so yeah, casting Tom Waits as the devil was a bit of a no-brainer - and does pull it off. Gilliam can do soiled beauty like no-one else, and the effortless way he blends it with a world of bored urbanites congregating outside Tesco and clutching milk-bottles to their hearts is a thing of beauty. Way too many eggs vanish into the pudding at the conclusion - there's a subplot about charities that looks daringly satirical at one point, then vanishes into sensationalism - the thing looks so damn weird that it just rolls over your objections.

This is certainly not when of his better films, but it has flashes of his brilliance, and the production nightmare means it's a bit much to ask for anything more. Terry Gilliam is the only filmmaker around that makes warped fairytales for adults that want to be children, the only filmmaker who successfully and repeatedly makes magic realism work in a cinematic environment. You'd be mad to hold this up as anything other than a fascinating failure, but you'd be equally mad not to go and see it.

*If you keep wondering where you've seen her, she appears on lots of posters for make up and shampoo and stuff. She also looks a bit like a strangely attractive Chupa-Chup.

**No, of course I've never done that. If "never" means "not often".