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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Where is God?

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
Director: Terry Gilliam.
Cert. 12A

Never dull, always enigmatic, this is a rickety travelling circus of a film, losing important elements by the wayside as it trundles along. Yet it maintains an entertaining, if not particularly fulfilling, dreaminess right up to its conclusion. Writer/director Terry Gilliam again reminds us of his belief that the world is a stark place, in which it’s barely possible to live wearing a smile — if it weren’t for the powerful depths of our imaginations.

We are treated to some very literal and undeniably spectacular visualisations of various individuals’ minds. One of the overarching themes is of our lives being defined by the choices we make, as our stories unfold. The film’s plot is actually rather slight, but effort is still needed to follow it as important points are littered all over the show, hiding behind grand ideas which probably needed a more universal yarn, and better developed characters to express them satisfactorily. Themes such as immortality, deception, love’s nature and Satan’s character are left like a dead-end crumb trail for us to follow.

From a Christian perspective, Satan’s portrayal is of particular interest. Making deals with the Devil is a persistent device used to determine the story’s outcome, an outcome which is simultaneously intriguing and underwhelming, a half successful combination of comedy and tragedy. The film’s lightweight Satan appears in many ways to be on ‘our’ level, far removed from the ‘Prince of Lies’ presented to us in the Bible, with whom one can find no practical common ground. While then, in the world of Doctor Parnassus, Satan has a direct influence on mankind, it begs the question ‘Where is God?’ Judging by his past work, this was surely Gilliam’s intention, and further evidence of humanity’s innate knowledge of God, yet culpable denial of the truth, is seen in the way that redemption is presented as something humanly attainable by the choices we make.

But whatever one may think of the filmmaker’s worldviews, what remains admirable is their skilful ability to deliver their concepts effectively through the art of cinema.

Peter D. Marsay