SI: Heath Ledger’s True Final Film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

[Christopher]

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics in the USA, is a fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. Imaginarium has already been released in the UK and Australia, and will arrive in the USA on Christmas day. The film follows the leader of a traveling theater troupe who, having made a deal with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations. Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, and Heath Ledger star in the film, though Ledger’s death one-third of the way through filming caused production to be temporarily suspended. Ledger’s role was recast with Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell portraying transformations of Ledger’s character Tony as he travels through a dream world.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a fantastical morality tale, set in the present-day. It tells the story of Dr. Parnassus and his extraordinary ‘Imaginarium’, a traveling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Doctor Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. An inveterate gambler, thousands of years ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr. Nick, in which he won immortality.

Centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr. Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his daughter reached her 16th birthday, she would become the property of Mr Nick. Valentina is now rapidly approaching this ‘coming of age’ milestone and Dr. Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr. Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls.

Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr. Parnassus promises his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr. Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles – and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all.

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