by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright May 2010
I enjoyed Imaginarium. I like the imagination Terry Gilliam puts into his sets and his stories. This one is no exception. In this case we have the contrast between a set consisting of an antique horse-drawn stage moving through modern London, and a set consisting of an imaginative man's imagination.
The consistently fun part of Terry Gilliam movies is the set work. No one impresses me more with their setwork originality. From Brazil to Time Bandits to 12 Monkeys and now to this. They are all different and all fun to see.
Likewise, the back story on this is different. We have a man who starts out as a chief monk a thousand years ago in charge of having a temple of monks keep chanting to keep the universe in existence. Into this temple comes a Western outsider, Mr. Nick, who hears this story as he takes a tour, declares this is bullpucky, and proceeds to vividly demonstrate he is right. The chief monk, Dr. Parnassus, now out of a job, then gets into a thousand-year long series of wagers with this Mr. Nick, who is an incarnation of the devil.
The story we witness firsthand is about a wager involving Parnassus' daughter who becomes sixteen in three days, and that wager is pretty conventional.
It's fun. That said, here are the parts that stand out in a Technofiction way:
o It was fun to see the acting on the portable stage at the beginning of the movie. It looked like a credible representation of good acting from 100 years earlier, and that reinforced the idea that Parnassus was now hopelessly behind the times.
o It was a shame that Gillian had to make Parnassus a drunken burnout. That is such a standard plot device.
o Mr. Nick, and his relation to Parnassus were a lot of fun to watch. This was not your standard devil-dealmaker relation, and that is what makes it fun.
o I'll say it again. The sets were so much fun. They really took you into new places of imagination.
So, this is a movie that I'm really happy was made. Keep up the good work, Terry and crew.
--The End--