Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) has a traveling show that wanders around London in a big horse-drawn trailer that looks like it came from centuries before. The doctor is joined by his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), her eager-to-deflower-her boyfriend Anton (Andrew Garfield), and the very much put-upon Percy (Verne Troyer). The show is very theatrical and requires audience participation. The goal at minimum is to get someone to go through the mirror in the middle of the set, which appears to be no more than mirrored paper. The movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is also more intricate than it may seem at first, but that may not be a good thing.
Heath Ledger, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield
Terry Gilliam's latest is bound to confound and frustrate those looking for a cohesive, traditional narrative. It does go from point A to point B, but the plot is less important to the movie than the twists in the metaphysical quantum reality on the other side of Dr. Parnassus' mirror. The rules never stay the same once you're on the other side, and things like up/down, right/wrong, and logical progression are all out the window. Parnassus got so abstract that I don't remember a lot of the end of the movie due to my mind wandering. I want to see it again though, which I can't say is the case for others who were at the screening I caught.
The movie does not lack cohesion or entertainment value due to the loss of Heath Ledger during filming. The problem that persisted for me was not thinking "what would this be like if he hadn't died?" from the point Tony (Ledger) is found by Parnassus and company hanging by the neck off a bridge. "How did they handle...you know, the Ledger thing" is the first thing people discuss after bringing up the movie in casual conversation when one person or another hasn't seen it. After a screening, a group likewise starts talking about whether the loss of Ledger did or didn't affect what they thought of the movie. Of course it did, or those conversations wouldn't be happening after every show.
Tony takes three separate trips through the mirror later in the film where the perspective of his companion shapes what he looks like, which I bought and works perfectly fine, especially thanks to the progression of actors used. It takes a few glances to pick up on the fact you're looking at Johnny Depp and not Heath. When done up as Tony, Depp looks and sounds eerily like Ledger. Jude Law looks and moves noticeably different, and Colin Farrell is yet more distinguishable and has the meatiest stuff to work with overall. Ledger's absence will distract everyone to some extent, at least on first viewing, but the diversion fades.
The production design and art direction are exactly as one would expect of Gilliam's trademark. The world of the Imaginarium is so richly-textured that one would swear it sprang forth, fully formed, directly from the mind of Terry Gilliam. If you can't dig surrealist weirdness, this one's not for you by any stretch. Parnassus is a richly-layered experience, but the death of Ledger makes it difficult to soak it all in on the first go. Even if I hadn't been mostly hooked by the whole work, the visuals would have me onboard for a second go-around.