Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus



The 2009 film by Terry Gilliam, noted Canadian director, with 2 Academy Award nominations and forever a Sony Classic holding the honor of working with the late, great and gone too soon Heath Ledger is positively a fantastic and absolutely magical film. It'd caught my eye a year and a half ago because I'm always quite drawn to enchanting and dazzling tales, like 'Pan's Labyrinth', 'Amelie', and 'Angel-A' to name a few and besides that, who wouldn't want to see a film with Heath Ledger, Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell all in one go; it's an orgasm for the eyes if you know what I mean! Verne Troyer, Dr. Evil's sidekick in the 'Austin Power' movies, and Christopher Plummer a well-respected actor nurturing 2 new and up-and-coming actors; Lily Cole, a striking beauty from all angles and even in bad lighting and cute comic relief Andrew Garfield, now seen in 'The Social Network' film among others.


One becomes easily lost in this visual and imaginative adventure, put in a state of trance by the lovely and bubbly carnival-type music and sheer wonderment and amazement of how much work every one of the crew had to do to pull a project like this off. Besides all the groovy entertainment, I felt it fell short on elevated intensity or lessons. I enjoyed every moment of it, and wished for it not to end, however what meaning or significance could I take from it? Sadly not a whole lot, an educated guess off the top of my head would be, to not make deals with the devil; you'll end up suffering more and will never win. And apart from that I would say that what Heath Ledger's last words in his interview about this film was pure gold. He said something to the effect: What is success? For me it's essentially about doing my best when the lights come on till it's a cut. Because if you don't enjoy what you do, then how can anything be seen as a success?


Perhaps, it is all about the enjoyment, however I'd quickly beg to differ knowing that too much of anything is not good and were we merely beings of enjoyment, how soon would our brains become mush and we become a lazy society of instant gratification gadgets? Ah, but aren't we not there already? J

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