I don’t know why. It’s not even that good a picture. But out of the dozen or so I shot yesterday, I keep coming back to this one of Thor about to leave the theater after he and Mudcub and I saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam’s latest self portrait.
There’s something very sweet about it, even though the color is fucked and the seats and the back wall of the theater aren’t parallel. Last night was sweet as well. I got taken out to a delicious meal at Tabla, from their tasting menu, which meant that I didn’t have to decide about anything other than my cocktail, a method of dining I’m coming to appreciate. During the movie I to to share chocolate chip cookies made by my talented sister. And we basically had the screening to ourselves, with the exception of some six other people. I bet the movie is tanking. I also know I’ll be impatiently lining up to buy it in disc format. Like all of my favorite Gilliam movies, it flops around looking for an ending, as though Gilliam couldn’t quite bear to leave the world he so lovingly crafted.
It’s a plea for the imagination, at the same time being a gimlet eyed look at the havoc artists wreak on those around them. The “lies” of today’s digital film making are played off against the solid pleasures of theatrical trickery that live on the viewers faith. Christopher Plummer’s Parnassus is an honest mountebank who comes up against Heath Ledger’s empty charlatan. Tom Waits plays a maguffin. The frame is stuffed with beautiful tarnish to look at. All in all, my kind of flick, bilious and odd as it is.
Tags: food, friends, movies, Terry Gilliam, thor