The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Man, Terry Gilliam has one vivid imagination. Well, what do you expect from one of the members of Monty Python? You ain't gonna find anything normal.

In London, the sideshow troupe of Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) promises to the audiences a journey to the "Imaginarium", an imaginary world commanded by the mind of Doctor Parnassus where dreams come true. In the stories Doctor Parnassus tells to his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), to the midget Percy (Verne Troyer), and his assistant Anton (Andrew Garfield), he claims have more than one thousand years; however, when he fell in love with a mortal, he made a deal with the devil Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) trading his immortality per youth. As part of bargain, he promised his son or daughter to Mr. Nick on the sixteenth birthday. Valentina now is almost in the doomed age and Doctor Parnassus bets with Mr. Nick that whoever seduces five souls in the Imaginarium will have Valentina as a prize. Meanwhile the troupe rescues Tony (Heath Ledger) that was hanging on a bridge by the Russians that explains why he had been chased and he joins the group. Tony and Valentina fall in love with each other and the jealous Anton discovers that his competitor is a liar.

I really liked the movie, but boy was it trippy. I thought it was kinda weird that an American (Johnny Depp), a Brit (Jude Law), an Irishman (Colin Farrell) and an Aussie (Heath Ledger) were all cast for one role, but it doesn't matter. It works.

My Rating: ****