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Konrad-Lehmann
Reviews
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
Entertaining, intelligent, but not moving
Although I enjoyed watching this movie, and had a lot to discuss afterwards, I felt strangely unsatisfied. Wondering why, I have come up with three major flaws: - As a spectator, I couldn't get involved with the characters' fates. In fact, they don't really have a fate. All characters are allegories, they fulfill functions, but they don't really live. They fail to develop credible relationships and conflicts. Although most actors are great, their characters are more like puppets. - This is due to the second flaw: A lack of time and rhythm. Many things happen too fast, so choices can't be motivated, relationships can't be developed. This is most striking in "Tony": He's the central character, obviously ambiguous, but everything that he does and that happens to him comes as a surprise. When he is suddenly redefined as "evil" in the last minutes of the film, this is absolutely unexpected. And during his seductor scenes, he didn't seem at all seducing to me (OK, I'm male, but my wife wasn't impressed either) - irrespective of the actor. Seduction needs time, but he never has it. Elderly ladies fall for him within seconds, but it doesn't seem credible. - A relatively small point: The dream-landscapes behind the mirror are all too candy-coloured and sterile, too much like Disney Land, too little like Phantasia. On the other hand, the actors are great. Especially Tom Waits is probably the best Mephisto I've ever seen. And the film give plenty to think about. What does it all mean? To me it seems to be a huge cosmology. Dr. Parnassus quite obviously is God (Why else would Mr. Nick exclaim "Oh God" almost every time he sees him - does the devil pray? And with whom else would the devil gamble about souls?). But he's a god who has renounced omnipotence long ago. God is a storyteller - a romantic concept, and indeed, the movie is full of romantic irony -, and he has left story-telling to mankind. That much is clear, questions turn up now. It is also a story about choices, and about freedom. So, what's the relationship between morality and freedom that Gilliam develops? Furthermore, it's a story about fantasy, and I think that Valentina herself may be the allegory of fantasy. But how does it relate to the other issues? And what exactly is Tony's role? He's repeatedly dubbed the "liar", so it's probably a character who avoids moral decisions by deceiving. Perhaps it's a mistake to rate "The imaginarium" as a movie. It's rather a mystery play. It's fun to think about it and resolve the riddles, but it never really moved me.
Le renard et l'enfant (2007)
Beauty
The very first image of the movie shows a mountain ridge in early morning autumn mist, and my thought was: "This is almost too beautiful." And it goes on like this: Images of landscape and animals that look like a series of romantic paintings, each of them perfect in every detail. Even the girl's room, her father's car - everything is nostalgic, romantic, beautiful. This could seem outdated and escapistic, but it fits a story that is itself of silent beauty, happening on the border between life and fairy tale, between Dian Fossey and Le Petit Prince. I enjoyed every minute of it. The extreme parsimony of the movie, having a simple, slow story, just one actor and hardly any special effects, exerted a strong magic. I therefore find it deplorable that this parsimony is given up in the last minutes, when suddenly two additional actors (the girl as a grown-up woman, and her son) are introduced. Another shortcoming is the music, which is often intrusive, Hollywood-like, and sometimes inappropriate: I couldn't bring an English pop-song together with French mountain glory. I went to the movie together with my two small daughters, but I recommend it to adults as well, given that they appreciate this kind of movie. Obviously, not everybody does.