The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Seen at: Century Boulder, Thursday at 1:20 p.m.

My younger sister Anne, knowing that I'm trying to visit all the theaters in northern Colorado, has been asking me for sometime what I thought about the Century Boulder, a place I'd never visited. I'd been meaning to get down there for quite a while. After I let The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus slip in and out of Fort Collins, I got my chance, since it has been parked down in Boulder for the last three weeks. I made a special trip down on Thursday to catch the matinee.

My how things have changed in Boulder. I had known that they had torn down the old Crossroads Mall and replaced it with a contemporary lifestyle center, with interior roads and outdoor access to the shops, but I didn't know it was on this scale. It's the kind of place that makes someone from Fort Collins think, "Gee, I'd forgotten how much Boulder is always up to date on these things." It's the same old rivalry. But notice I don't live in Boulder.

Well, the shopping center is really nice, I have to say. Lots of easy parking in the underground garage, and a Pete's Coffee nearby where I killed an hour before the show reading. I often say I go to Starbucks because the natural light actually allows me to read. I wish there was a Pete's in the Fort, because I'd never have to go back to Starbucks again. Nice big windows.

My sister hates the Century multiplex there. I wasn't as adverse to it as her. It's a strange setting to be sure, with the entrance to the lobby right on the underground parking level. Among other things, I noticed (again) that the Century chain is really the Cinemark chain in disguise. I'd learned that in Aurora, at the Century there, which seems like a clone of the one in Boulder. The auditorium was small. That was about my only complaint. I'll have to ask her what she didn't like about the place. I've seen worse.

And I've seen worse movies than Imaginarium to be sure, but rarely ones so poignant in their failures. Of course you probably know the scoop about Terry Gilliam's latest movie, about how filming had to be suspended after Heath Ledger's death. The dilemma was: to reshoot the entire thing with a different actor (which would have deprived the world of Ledger's last performance) to come up with a gimmick. Gilliam went the gimmick route, and to be fair, it somewhat works, given that the movie has the same "two worlds" device as The Fisher King. So we see Ledger (mostly) in the real world, and substitute actors in the imaginary world. The gimmick is introduced via a minor character in the opening scenes in a rather confusing way, until you realize what is going on.

I can forgive the confusion here. I'm glad we got to see Ledger in the scenes they shot him in. What's harder to swallow about this story is the part that is pure Gilliam.

If you've seen The Fisher King, you probably know what I mean, in that Gilliam is enamored of the power of fantasy. That's all well and good. I thought the story would about the power of storytelling and narrative (something I think a lot about in writing this blog). But although it portrays itself as such (with a scene about "the story that sustains the universe"), it's really about the power of imagination. Narrative takes a back seat to chaotically wild fantastical images and scenarios, all of which are supposed to impress us by how weird they are.

The story creaks along this premise, mostly OK until the third act, when the story deficiencies catch up with it. In the last half hour it becomes a rather confusing mish-mash of wild events and settings (supposedly all taking place in a Wonderland beyond-the-looking-glass world inside one characters head). All of this wildness seems to obscure the lack of coherent plot line towards the end of the movie. The fantastical scenes simply don't add up to a real story that kept me interested.

To be fair, it might have made a little more sense had Ledger not died during filming. It would have kept me from being distracted by thoughts like "Is that Colin Farrel? Oh yes it is" just when I'd gotten used to Johnny Depp as the standin for Ledger in earlier scenes.

But it's not the fatal flaw of the movie. Instead it's that the story becomes a jumbled bag of absurd surreal scenes strung together towards a climax that seemed to have little to do with the first two acts of the movie. Moreover the ending of the movie is just a freaking depressing downer, one that strikes the wrong note after one has spent two hours thinking "Gosh it's a shame what happened to Heath."

In any case, it was perhaps the perfect Boulder movie to me---weird things coming at me in chaotic fashion, and leaving me with a deflated soul and a bad taste in my mouth. What it is about that place? I guess at heart I'll always be a hick from the Fort.