Saw The imaginarium of Dr Parnassus the other day.
alot of reviews seem to say its bitty - the whole doesn't equal the sum of its parts, doesn't fulfill potential etc etc.
but i get the impression people are missing the point..its certainly a watch more than once film for starters. It contains what seems like a number of levels of allegory...for instance - not only the fight of good vs bad, but the acceptance of bad into one's point of view..the faustian contract if you like, where you accept the outcome..
I also think its an allegory of Terry Gilliam's struggle itself - and perhaps its useful to know a bit about the trajectory of the director here, but i saw Mr Nick as representing the money men in Hollywood - where Gilliam has never been embraced, and the travelling imaginarium as the creative spirit of his films - often being set up in shopping malls where entertainment is spoonfed and all the shops are essentially the same..fighting against this creeping lack of imagination...
a few years back Gilliam was left haunted by the question - by going "into" hollywood, was he selling out his dream, or was he infiltrating city hall...I think this touches on that, as the Doctor seems to reach an uneasy outcome near the end......is the final deal with Mr Nick the best we can hope for?
Tony's "faces" can also be seen as appearance, appearing respectable even if your motives aren't.
I think where people have missed the point is that the film is massive in scope - no less than a musing on the nature of the creative force itself - perhaps not even celluloid can delineate this - so a film is always going to seem less than its intended target...but thats certainly no bad thing since the intention is so high..
what do you think?