Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer)—in appearance a close, though somewhat ailing, relative of Gandalf—travels across England with his small troupe. During performances, the Doctor falls into a trance, while the troupe’s actors—his lovely daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), Anton (Andrew Garfield), who is in love with her, and his dwarf friend Percy (Verne Troyer)—encourage the crowd gathering around the traveling stage to take part in a bizarre spectacle. The chosen person is allowed to enter the imaginarium—the Doctor’s world of imagination. It soon becomes clear, however, that there may be no way back from this world. The theater does not attract much interest, though; a colorful booth with actors in costumes from an entirely different era does not fit the age of the Tesco generation.
Meanwhile, Parnassus has made a pact with the devil (Tom Waits)—a pact whose stake is the Doctor’s daughter, and the winner will be the one who gathers more souls. The task seems impossible to the Doctor until he meets Tony (played by no fewer than four actors—excellent Heath Ledger and, in incarnations from the Doctor’s imaginary world, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrell).
The film has attracted considerable interest since production began. First, it was directed by Terry Gilliam—and who does not know “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” of which Gilliam is a co-creator, although he rarely appeared on screen? Second, Heath Ledger starred in the film; because of his unexpected and mysterious death, the director put the production on hold for a long time.
Fortunately, someone suggested an excellent solution: other actors took on the role of Tony without sacrificing any of the material already filmed. This was possible because all the scenes in the real world involving Tony had been completed before the actor playing him died. This ingenious device gave the film two additional advantages—first, it featured some of Hollywood’s most recognizable and hottest actors; second, Tony’s transformations in the Doctor’s imaginary world opened up new interpretive possibilities.
There are many ways to interpret the film. On the one hand, it is a film about the eternal struggle between good and evil (and human imperfection, which makes people willingly enter the arena of that struggle). On the other, it is about parental love. Before having a child, it is difficult to imagine how great such love can be; then, once one becomes a parent, it is difficult to accept a child’s desire to live their own life. It is also a film about how what is valuable often remains hidden from view. The film’s final incarnation of Tony (a truly excellent Collin Farrell) and its ending, concerning Valentine’s later fate, compel this interpretation. Works such as “Citizen Kane” and “Lord Jim” may also come to mind, since both Tony and Doctor Parnassus turn out to be characters who are difficult to decipher—the motives behind their actions seem unclear to us for a long time, and the truth about them is revealed gradually. Yet both remain at least partly shrouded in mystery until the very end of the film.
The film has many strengths—good acting, wonderful cinematography and set design (the Doctor’s dreamlike imagination recalls who created the mad cartoons in “Flying Circus…”). The screenplay is unconventional, and its development surprising—Tony’s transformation leads in an unexpected direction. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that the film is missing something. It has been a long time since I left a cinema with such mixed feelings. At first, I felt that I had come across a film trying too hard to speak in an extraordinary way about completely trivial matters; only later did I begin to discover the film’s successive layers. I am still not entirely convinced that the director made proper use of his own screenplay—a screenplay that, despite many strong elements, simply becomes boring at times.
Katarzyna Boćkowska