• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Final Bows: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus/This Is It

Written by Adam Ezagouri
Thursday, 15 October 2009 00:00

In the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, Terry Gilliam’s struggle to get his movie adaptation of Don Quixote off the ground was brought to the screen in all its honest glory. Unfortunately, even with the likes of Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort working on the project, Gilliam’s film was doomed never to see the light of day.

And now, seven years later, it looked like Gilliam's latest, typically madcap project, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, was going to suffer the same fate. But the ex-Monty Python wasn’t going to take this new challenge lying down.

The tragic and sudden passing of Heath Ledger halfway through filming meant that the future of Gilliam’s Imaginarium hung by a thread and knowing the director’s recent “luck”, it soon became unlikely that his new Baron Munchausen-esque opus would ever be completed. Luckily, Gilliam and the late actor had some pretty fancy friends to say the least. And so Ledger is morphed into Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell as the director proudly clunks not two but three coconut halves together and the film pretend-gallops back on track.

Gilliam has survived setbacks before and it looks like once again he has managed to pull through. His last film Tideland was barely released in the UK and critics didn’t really go for its disturbing but compelling atmosphere so his Imaginarium will at least enjoy an appropriate release and therefore attract a wider audience. One hopes that the focus of Ledger’s final performance won’t detract too much from the film itself and Gilliam’s latest will be looked at with a more light-hearted approach and given its chance to impress as a whole.

As Heath Ledger signs off from his career with his final performance, so does Michael Jackson who appears in new documentary This Is It, which combines footage from the King of Pop’s last rehearsals with interviews of people involved in the setting up of the London tour which would have been the star’s final bow. Jackson is of course no stranger to cinema having starred in Wizard of Oz re-imagining The Wiz in 1978 and his very own Moonwalker 10 years later.

A lot has been said about the late singer but This Is It, judging from the trailers, will focus solely on his musical talents in the hope of showing that Jackson hadn’t lost any of his singing and performing abilities. It’s very unlikely that any serious debates will emanate from the documentary and that anything more about Jackson will be revealed but for the late star’s fans, This Is It will no doubt be a welcome homage.

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus trailer:

This Is It trailer: