Джокер » 23 май 2009, 11:25
В Каннах между тем прошла премьера. Большинству критиков кино очень понравилось, отмечают офигенный продакшен-дизайн, Леджера и Деппа, но говорят, что широкой публике фильм покажется слишком уж странным и необычным. А мы думали, почему фильм никак не обретет дистрибьютора.
Вот выдержки из рецензий:
The first big question about Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus involves how the filmmaker managed to complete the film when his star Heath Ledger died in the middle of shooting. The answer is with great imagination and skill.
Especially considering the trauma and difficulties stemming from Heath Ledger’s death during production and the fact that Terry Gilliam hadn’t directed a good picture in more than a decade, the helmer has made a pretty good thing out of a very bad situation in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Pic’s second half is resplendent with ever-changing CGI backdrops for the imaginary world the doctor has created with his gift. “Original designers and art directors” Dave Warren and Gilliam no doubt played a dominant role in conceiving the film’s look, which is ornate without being a riot of detail, but production designer Anastasia Masaro, visual effects supervisors John Paul Docherty and Richard Bain and costume designer Monique Prudhomme certainly made major contributions as well. Other production values are strong across the board
Plummer enacts the oldest man in the world with verve, and Troyer, Waits and Cole nicely hold necessarily caricatured work in check.
This is the purest expression of Gilliam’s distinctive sensibility in a long while, complete with outbursts of Pythonesque humour, entrancing dream landscapes, strange creatures, a dapper devil and a wise midget. It is an incredibly rich stew of a film and an often wilfully eccentric proposition for a mainstream audience.
Heath Ledger fares better as Tony, a troubled soul whom the troupe rescue from a failed suicide attempt, although his tragic real-life death mid-way through production means that the role is played by three different actors during the fantasy sequences - Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law. Each acquits himself well, with Depp a particular stand-out, but with Ledger on such spellbinding form it’s a shame we’ll never get to see his complete performance.
These effects-laden sequences are definitely the highlights of the film, visually sumptuous feasts for the eyes that give Gilliam the opportunity to explore his own deranged imagination.
…memorable performances come courtesy of singer Tom Waits, who is a beatnik Satan known as Nick, and Verne Troyer - best known as Mini-Me - who plays the tiny Fool to Christopher Plummer’s Lear-like Parnassus character. In a movie shifting between reality and the imagination with every scene, he is the only voice actually talking sense.
There’s no doubt that the imaginary world he’s created is awe-inspiring, but it’s ultimately designed for an art house audience. The critics at Cannes loved it, but most cinema-goers would need to see it more than once to start untangling the multiple themes.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a work as exceptional and unusual as its title, premieres out of competition today. A tale of good and evil battling for souls that’s made with Gilliam’s fantastic and fantastical visual imagination, Imaginarium is the director’s best, most entertaining film in years.
Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.