The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

In the event that you have not heard of this movie, it is the last film made by the great Heath Ledger. Ledger did not live to finish the film so his friends stepped in to help out - Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law (it may sound silly but it works in the movie - you'll see why). It is also directed by Terry Gilliam of "Monty Python" fame. I started to type out what the story is about but then realized as that was a pointless exercise. The film has some amazing performances (with the notable exception of Vern Troyer) and it absolutely keeps your attention. It is very rough around the edges and that is part of what makes it an enjoyable film.

The latest in a long line of confounding Terry Gilliam movies that I can't decide whether to love or hate. Parnassus comes fully equipped with the director's requisites: damningly eccentric characters, gorgeous cinematography, far-left-field humor, delicate plot and utterly befuddling dialog. The scenes set inside the imaginarium are fantastic, dream logic-dominated landscapes on par with Michel Gondry's best work, where we're encouraged to celebrate the fact that absolutely nothing is static and chaos rules. Unfortunately, the real world scenes do nothing to lasso the film to the ground in any way, a function which was desperately needed. When the dust settled, I... think... I understood what this was all about? That's more than I could've said for some of the Python alum's earlier work, at least after one viewing. Either way, it's basically a moving painting. You take away what you can and just accept that some parts of it aren't meant to be comprehended by anyone but the artist.