The Imaginations of Doctor Parnassus,

maybe to be subtitled with “in memorial Heath Ledger” was yesterday’s pre-premiere at our local cinema and I was curious.

I started headfirst into the movie, only having a (very) rough idea of what this all was about, feeling quite comfortable with the german translation of the title which hinted a relation of sorts with Doctor Caligari… Terry Gilliams newest project is weird and reminds of a strange combination of Alice in Wonderland (which is not yet out) and Goethe’s masterpiece Faust. The film very much profits from the ingenious performance of Tom Waits as Mr Nick (aka the Devil himself). What at first appears as an approach full of humor is one of tragedy.

The Imaginations of Doctor Parnassus are wonderful and inspiring, they are an approach to storytelling and to dreaming. They speak of change and danger and are translated with a lot of love and passion behind every single picture. I very much like the Heath Ledger part in it with the perspective of change and the three replacements of Heath in those imaginations. (Farell, Law and Depp)

For my part, I couldn’t get warm with Lily Cole, mainly due to her ever-child appearance, though her role fits very good in… Andrew Garfield on his part was a troublesome tragic, at times a bit annoying but playing perfectly the role of the one in love who just can’t get out of this all…

All in all, the movie was good, very thoughful and dramatic. The pictures were wonderful and inspiring. The end is a little disappointing and some parts just could have been improved in my view. Still, I would give Mr Plummer for his very heart-warming Parnassus a 6 of 10 points. With a recommendation for all friends of tragic fantasy (in this case you would probably give 8/10).