Day 10: To elicit that most elusive “wow” response, a film based on a wild doctor’s imagination must show far-ranging creativity of its own, a heavy burden. Writer/director Terry Gilliam does achieve the needed, inspired flights of fancy here and there in his The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, no mean achievement but not the visual triumph I’d hoped for.

Doctor Parnassus’ traveling show offers select audience members (and a few disruptive trouble makers) the chance to pass through the looking glass to face their fears or enjoy their dreams. But with the rickety circus wagon drawn by four black horses passes through contemporary London, Parnassus directs a failing endeavor with a crisis looming. Thousands of years before, to gain immortality, the good doctor made a pact with Mr. Nick the devil, and the debt comes due in days. Parnassus’ daughter Valentina becomes Nick’s property upon the occasion of her 16^th birthday, though another bet with the devil may save her.

Several poetic visuals are truly surprising and deeply satisfying, but too many others clunk along straining for even a measure of lyrical virtuoso. It seems Gilliam and team believed more cluttered visuals and overwhelming sounds would accumulate to good effect, but the result is often less than the sum of its parts. Overstimulation can produce fatigue instead of rich enjoyment, and Parnassus is a roller coaster ride of both sensations. Gilliam has had such problems with consistency in other of his equally uneven films such as The Adventures of Dr. Munchausen. Nevertheless, as characters burst through the mirror to the other side of logic, there is unarguably a release that Gilliam, at his best, taps as well as any director today working with surrealistic, exhilarating images.

The cast is superb, especially Christopher Plummer as Doctor Parnassus and a brilliant Tom Waits as Mr. Nick, the Devil. The tragic death of Heath Ledger part-way through the film’s production forced Gilliam’s most resourceful decision in order to maintain the integrity of Ledger’s superb performance as Tony Shepherd. Since Gilliam had finished most of the scenes in the real world, he decided to substitute different actors for various aspects of Tony’s character. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell stepped forward to appear in the brief scenes of Tony on the imagination side of the mirror, and Gilliam’s ingenious solution adds to the complexity and interrogation of the nature of personality. It’s a brilliant solution. Credited at the end as made possible by “Heath Ledger’s Friends,” Doctor Parnassus ends up being even more emotionally about life and fulfillment than anyone could have imagined or wished.

Diane Carson, a freelance writer from St. Louis, has reviewed and taught film for over two decades. She’s covering the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for STLtoday.com.