|Individual Entry
Land of Whimsy / news / Individual Entry
Monday, May 10, 2010
BD impressions: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
7:29 PM / BD Impressions / 
16 Comments
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is typical Terry Gilliam: imaginative, unconventional and downright frustrating. I've only seen a handful of the man's films, but I can't recall ever liking a single one of them unconditionally. For me, they all contain moments of audacity and greatness, but before too long they invariably fall apart, collapsing under the weight of their own aspirations.
Of course, DOCTOR PARNASSUS will probably be remembered first and foremost as the film that very nearly wasn't to be, given Heath Ledger's untimely death mid-production. Interestingly, however, for all its problems, Ledger's death, and Gilliam's solution to the problem of losing his mid-actor before the shoot wrapped, isn't one of them. In fact, the use of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to complete the film is actually rather an inspired choice. (Although I must confess that I didn't realise the man I was watching was Depp rather than Ledger until about half-way through his sequence. Law and Farrell, on the other hand, are far more instantly recognisable.) Still, the biggest revelation in terms of the cast comes in the form of Lily Cole, a most unconventional-looking model, as Dr. Parnassus' daughter Valentina. As I understand it, she had no prior acting experience, but she comes across as a complete natural, and I predict that she has big things ahead of her.
On the whole, though, I feel inclined to suggest that DOCTOR PARNASSUS might be most charitably described as "interesting". It doesn't really work as a whole, and the over-abundance of CGI gives the film a fakeness that it could have done without. Gilliam badly needed to sell the film's fantasy worlds as tangible, believable places, but instead they simply come across as synthetic and oddly weightless. Say what you like about AVATAR (and believe me, I did), but at least James Cameron was able to create a convincing alternate world. Then again, he had eight times the budget to work with...
Image quality: For pricing reasons, I decided to go with Lions Gate's UK release of THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS rather than the US version from Sony Pictures. In retrospect, this was a mistake. While there are undoubtedly some positives in this image, they are overshadowed by what I believe is the worst compression I have ever seen on an AVC title - yes, potentially even worse than that of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST. Virtually every image below suffers from noticeable artefacting. This is not deliberate on my part - it's simply down to the fact that this is what most of the film looks like. Skin takes on a smudgy appearance, fabric degenerates into sludge, and grain takes on a stucco-like effect. Many of the wide shots fare absolutely dreadfully, with close-ups generally looking a bit better. It's not as if it's a particularly long film, and the bit rate seems pretty high, so we can't claim that the film was starved for space. It looks simply to be a case of good old fashioned bad encoding, and as such should have been rejected out of hand. 5/10
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
studio: Lions Gate; country: UK; region code: B; codec: AVC;
file size: 30.7 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 35.93 Mbit/sec
16 Comments
Marcus:
I've seen:
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
TIDELAND
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNARRUS
(and LIFE OF BRIAN, although I know he didn't direct it - curiously, it's my favourite of the bunch)
Crystal Plumage:
I've not seen it yet, no, and to be honest I was planning on picking up the Blue Underground version anyway. Those captures do look pretty bad, but I'm not sure whether it's down to some sort of digital manipulation, or the encoding, or something else entirely. I think I'll wait till I see it in motion before saying any more.
(Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 3:07 PM)
Daniel:
Judging by the captures, the BU release has much better encoding than the Arrow version. That said, DVD Beaver tends to over-compress their screenshots, so they generally aren't all that useful as a means of judging the standard of encoding.
(Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 at 8:37 AM)
The "supposed" issue with the Lions Gate release is the dreadful encoding. It really is abysmal - some of the worst I've ever seen on a BD. I can only reiterate what I've already said (and what you've already quoted): textures are sludgy, skin is mushy and plasticky, and the grain is poorly resolved. (Can you see the stucco-like effect in the background of this shot? The whole disc is like that.) I know some people are happy with the Lions Gate release and don't see any problems with it, in which case I'm pleased for them, but I personally consider this disc's encoding to be so bad that I'm amazed it made it through quality control.
As for the whole JPG vs. PNG issue, I've addressed that debate here and here.
Hope this helps. :)
(Posted on Friday, June 4, 2010 at 6:57 PM)
To combat spam, commenting is automatically disabled on entries older than 30 days.
Did a comment you tried to post accidentally get eaten by the spam filter? It happens from time to time. I get upwards of 200 spam comments every day and unfortunately don't have the time to weed through all of them in case something genuine ended up there by mistake. If one of your posts gets incorrectly flagged as spam, email me at whiggles[at]ntlworld[dot]com and I'll do my best to retrieve it.
Archives
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- News Archive Index
Categories
- Animation
- BD Impressions
- Blu-ray
- Books
- Cinema
- DVD
- Games
- General
- HD DVD
- Model Railways
- Music
- Podcast
- Reviews
- Technology
- Television
- Web
1. Daniel Joseph Sardella said:
Do you feel that way about Brazil and 12 Monkeys?
(Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 1:05 AM)