I was excited to see this film. I tend to love Terry Gilliam films, especially those in recent years where visual effects have actually come close to being able to match his mad visions, and while The Brothers Grimm was a disappointment, the trailers and posters for this film gave me hopes for a real return to form. (I have yet to see Tideland.)
The critical reception of the film has been very mixed. A lot of reviews have criticised the sloppy plot and Ledger’s performance, although I suspect that at least some of those reviewers were damning in large part because Ledger’s death made them feel obliged to be charitable, and they railed against that.
Indeed, I rather wish I could have seen the film blind. Without knowing that the original script would not have had Tony transforming every time he goes through the mirror, without knowing that the mysterious outsider character was played by a man who is now dead and venerated, and that those representing his other selves (all three remarkably resembling him when given the right hair and makeup, even Jude Law) were friends and colleagues, that Gilliam was resurrecting a film whose leading star had passed away during filming after a legacy of disasters ruining his works. It was distracting to look at Lily Cole kissing Colin Farrell and to wonder what must be going through her mind, after spending time on a filmset with a man, no doubt becoming his friend, and now months later, knowing he is dead and performing a stage kiss with someone else entirely dressed up in the same clothes, made to resemble him.
All those things I wish weren’t in my mind when watching the film. They weren’t huge distractions, but the politics certainly got in the way of the art in this case, and even if such hooks can introduce a film to a wider audience, I like the New Critical ideal, even if I know it is next to impossible in a personal viewing to see only the art, not the artist.
Anyway, happily, I rather liked the story. I have read complaints about the plot, but I think it works neatly – a man has struck a deal with the Devil for immortality, and played games with him for centuries, but now he is very old and his stories go largely ignored, and the Devil is coming to take that which he was promised for the gift of eternal life: old Doctor Parnassus’ daughter, who will be his once she turns sixteen. The doctor’s stage mirror, leading into a world reflecting the psyches of those who enter, in which they are given a choice between the road of virtue and that of the devil, has lately given him a string of failures, but the man with no memory, met by chance, may just bring change.
If I’m honest, I’m of the opinion that simply seeing the sight of a ninety-foot Russian woman pulling off her mechanical head to reveal that she is being driven by Tom Waits gives anyone their money’s worth. And there are numerous examples of dazzling Gilliam visions here: those wonderful balloons with Christopher Plummer’s face all around them, the exquisite detail on the miniature of the monks’ carved cliff-face temple, even the simple beauty of location, be it a fairground in front of Tower Bridge or an empty building site, captured in strange sharpness with Gilliam’s trademark short-lens, deep-focus style, bucking the current trend of DOF so shallow ears often blur.
Not everything was necessary. We got the idea that the Brit hoi-polloi was an unpleasant lot fairly soon. Making deeply politically incorrect jokes about Verne Troyer got old very fast, and even if he was perhaps the most respectable character, there wasn’t really any need for him and some jokes just weren’t funny. Tony’s past was a little convoluted, with both the loan sharks and the disgrace of child trafficking or whatever it was revealed in the final vision (it slipped by in one line), and yes, Ledger’s accent was all over the place, and although it was better than it was in Brother’s Grimm, I must say that I don’t think Gilliam gets the best out of him: Batman was a finer swansong.
On the other hand, the change into other actors works, almost to the point where it seems integral to the plot, and it’s true that Depp and Ledger, made up right, look remarkably similar (it’s always amusing to think that Gilliam wanted to bring the two together onscreen for Grimm, but Bob Weinstein told him Depp wasn’t famous enough and got Matt Damon in instead – only for Pirates of the Caribbean to make Depp a megastar months later), the old patriarchs are wonderful to watch, Lily Cole (who I failed to spot around Cambridge last year as she did remarkably well in her first year) has a strange beauty to her, and Gilliam gets to put his flights of fancy in believable contexts.
Not Gilliams best, not up there with The Fisher King, Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing et al, but superb nonetheless.
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