THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS: Although it makes better headlines to claim The Dark Knight was Heath Ledger’s final onscreen performance, the actor’s swan song was actually in this visually ambitious but narratively frustrating film from director Terry Gilliam. The doctor himself (played by 2009 Oscar nominee Christopher Plummer) is part of a traveling carnival troupe who sells trips through his dream mirror in exchange for souls in a long-standing bet with the devil. The first one to five lays claim to the doctor’s only daughter. Ledger plays an amnesiac new member of the group with a gift for tempting new customers behind the looking glass. But the actor’s death forced Gilliam to rework the script to account for various other performers playing the same part (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell all step up to the plate). Ironically, the last-minute identity switch is one of the more interesting and successful aspects of the film, which stumbles about like a clumsy Frankenstein amalgam of other Gilliam pictures like Time Bandits, Baron Munchausen and The Fisher King. It’s unmistakably the work of the director’s Victorian-via-Looney Tunes visual style and even fits thematically into his imagination-fueled auteur theory. Our first trip through the magic mirror is a wondrously bizarre vision of handmade trees and theatrical bric-a-brac, exactly what you’d expect to see if you peeked between the ears of Monty Python’s former animator. But with so many chapters already written in his cinematic autobiography, Gilliam seems to be repeating himself…only with the aid of digital technology. Sony’s Blu-ray certainly gives the film the red carpet treatment, with a Movie IQ enhanced version of the film plus deleted scenes, commentary and a cast / crew retrospective about Ledger.