The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus Review

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus is quite a strange film and there are times when it’s hard to understand and could get very confusing at times.

The basic outline of the film is about a travelling amusement company that lets their audience have the chance to go inside their own imagination. They get given a choice between a happy and pure path or a dark and evil path. The imaginarium works behind a magical mirror and is controlled by the immortal Dr Parnassus and his mysterious powers.

He has a deal with Mr. Nick (some say he’s the devil) that when his daughter, Valentina, is sixteen years old she will then be Mr. Nicks. The amusement travel around to different places to get a good audience. Along the way they stop over a bridge in the middle of the night to find a young man hanging by his neck under the bridge.  They get him up on top of the bridge and make sure he’s alive and take him with them but when he wakes up in the morning he has no memory of what had happened that night. 

He works with them in a few of their shows and soon later Dr Parnassus gets a visit from Mr. Nick who tells him about the young man. Later on the Dr convinces the young man that he can read his memory and tells the young man that his name is really Tony and he had a charity for children.

Tony decides he wants to help them with their show to get them a bigger audience, and it works, but somehow along the way things don’t work to plan and the amusement team/family turns their backs on Tony and to complete the deal with Mr. Nick they have to kill him.

This film was quite strange and confusing, however it was also good in a weird way. When my friends and I were watching it, we found it odd and hard to understand at some points. 

There are films that I may find confusing that I would watch again to understand them fully, but I can't find myself properly getting into this film enough to watch it again.