The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

[sabotabby]

It seems as though Terry Gilliam set out to make a movie with as much awesome in it as possible, and then put an extra heap of awesomesauce on it just because he could. Either that, or he just wanted to cast Tom Waits as the Devil and then made a movie out of it. Regardless of the intent, it is completely fantastic.



Um, so yeah, there's a scene where Tom Waits/Satan rides a giant mecha-babushka.

[Poll #1503494]

The rest of the movie is almost as great. Which is a challenge because I don't think anything is as great as Tom Waits driving a mecha-babushka. Additionally, they have the best lampshade hanging for Heath Ledger dying halfway through the filming since Plan 9 From Outer Space. Well, it's better than that one, come to think of it, as they actually had it make sense in a surreal sort of way.


So basically I loved it and you should see it too so we can squee together.

Comments

[thegiantkiller.livejournal.com]

Weighing this against my friend Kai's warning for massive and unexpected race!fail . . .

[sabotabby]

The race!fail is







[SPOILER]blackface on a Little Person. Urged on by a character who turns out to be so evil that Satan is actually taken aback. I mean, it's massive race!fail for sure, but I took it the same way I took the blackface in Mad Men—they were out to do the most stomach-churning shit possible.[/SPOILER]

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen it, so I'm talking out my ass a bit, but I would just like to chime in that there is a difference between *depicting* race!fail, in the context of a character or a specific situation, and actually *being" race!fail. Sabo's descriptopn sounds to me like it's really more a conscious depiction of race!fail.

As someone who writes a fair amount of misogynist characters, but whose work could hardly be called misogynist, it's a distinction I'm eager to to remind people of.

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

i took it as a depiction of race!fail, personally. it seemed that the character in the situation (trying to avoid spoilers) was uncomfortable with it but going along for the good of the group, and the response of other characters (e.g. the rich woman) was the kind of response that we would ridicule, and since it was in a totally unsympathetic character the film did not support her fail-ful response. ... if that made any sense.

sabo, what do you mean about the character who was so evil? which character?

[sabotabby]

I meant [SPOILER]Tony.[/SPOILER] The whole modernization thing was his idea. I took the whole thing as a send-up of "edgy" art that pretends to be above politics. Especially given what we find out about him in the end, the race!fail thing seemed to be about portraying that he was a skeezy, insensitive lout who viewed other people as objects for his amusement.

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

yes, that's a good point, for sure!! having seen it only once, during which time i was utterly overwhelmed by the epic awesomeness of Mr Nick, i haven't yet got a real sense of his actual character (i mean, what type of person he is, etc). i like your view of it as a send-up of edgy art, definitely.