Balancing the Ledger

CANNES, France -

Those who say Terry Gilliam's films are cursed don't lack for supporting evidence.

In 1985, the Minnesota native and former Monty Python member made "Brazil," which, before being discovered as a black-comic classic, was re-edited and essentially buried by its studio. Years later, Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was aborted in midproduction, owing to a near-biblical confluence of unhappy accidents -- and resulting in a documentary, "Lost in La Mancha," that preserves the whole painful experience. Although "Tideland" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" are now cult films, their reputations haven't fully overcome the early critical drubbings the films received at major festivals.

Miraculously, Gilliam, who turns 70 in November, bore no sign of his alleged hex while at the Cannes Film Festival this month to present "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," a fanciful ode to artisanal resilience whose lead actor, Heath Ledger, died partway through production. Looking as innocently goofy and unstoppable as the Play-Doh pariah on his T-shirt, Mr. Bill ("Oh, no!"), the director cheerfully explained how he pulled his most afflicted project from the grave.

"Everybody in the cast and everybody on the crew was determined that this film would be finished," Gilliam said. "Everybody worked longer and harder, and we got through it. It was people's love for Heath that propelled this thing forward."

Gilliam is quite correct to say that there's "irony throughout this film." Introduced hanging by his neck from a London bridge, Ledger's mysterious Tony is rescued by the members of a circus troupe whose "imaginarium" act includes a mirrored portal to another dimension. When the group's ramshackle stage collapses, Ledger's character suggests, "Why don't you just claim it on insurance?"

Faced with his own collapse, Gilliam could have claimed defeat, but instead cast Colin Farrell, Jude Law and Johnny Depp -- a circus troupe of sorts -- to play various reflections of Tony as they appear on the other side of the magic mirror. As Christopher Plummer's troupe-leading Dr. Parnassus puts it: "You can't stop stories from being told."

The message is an obviously personal one for Gilliam, whose artistic rebirth in Cannes included the surprising news that financiers are interested in bringing even "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" back to life.

"We're living in an age of storytelling all over the place, and big lies are being told daily," Gilliam said. "I just know that the restructuring of the world through stories is vital -- using one's imagination to expand possibilities."