At the barbican

Imagine a horse drawn carriage of improbable dimension which functions as sleeping quarters for 4 improbable characters and becomes, at the occurrence, a theatre stage. imagine this improbable contraption on the streets of the City,amongst the slickest of buildings, the elegance of modern architecture, the architecture of the supreme wealth.

It’s a story and it’s a non story; it’s a tribute to Heath Ledger, but it’s a movie that doesn’t compromise. A movie that doesn’t sell its soul to the devil, and how could a movie like this possibly sell its soul?

Despite the impressive cast, it’s a movie outside of the mainstream. this is more like a “trip”, an hallucination. It’s also self indulgent, in the sense that after a career and a body of work like Gilliam’s, he has indulged in making a movie first of all for himself. something that he wanted to do, and that got done despite the unfortunate and tragic death of the actor.

This is not a movie that can be told in terms of story, but it’s a movie of emotions, it’s a movie of magic visuals but not the usual 3D CGI stuff we are so used. This is the work of an artisan, it’s like hand made pralines, it’s priceless in its uniqueness, in its finesse, in its gentleness.

This is a movie that will have to be placed in the Heaven of movies; in the top of the lists. It’s a masterpiece that deserves to become a classic in its own time, but it’s also a movie of a dying era. I feel that the room for movies like Dr Parnassus is shrinking. Independent, low budget movies will be more and more underground, extreme and cast out; while blockbusters will become more and more expensive and they will become the “cinema” of the masses, larger and larger masses of people, those kids that are now growing up either not going to the cinema at all, or going all for the next star filled blockbuster action movie, romance movie, or trip movie, or whatever.