The idea came seeing The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and then analyzing what could fit under the label “parallel world”, not as science fiction universe, but as production imaginary mind of someone, I got the titles below, in which reality overlaps the unreality.
Directed by Spike Jonze, is the story of a puppeteer who accidentally finds a gate, a tunnel to mind of the actor John Malkovich (played by himself), which is becoming a lot more to “live” to discover later that there is the only one who knows the secret of living a different body, but there is a long list of “waiting” at the gate of the mind of John Malkovich.
09. Adaptation
This time is the fictional story of Charlie Kaufman himself… together with his twin brother Donald (both played by Nicolas Cage, in one of his finest roles). Both writers, Donald beginner and unexpected commercial success, Charlie in a crisis of life and inspiration, the story is trying to adapt to screen a book about an orchid breeder, “true” story that seamlessly intertwined with travail Charlie’s script.
08. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I sat thinking over whether to include Eternal Sunshine of the films in this list. It’s not imaginary, but the twisting drawers memory, like a Rubik’s cube. Furthermore, by removing them as a box that you want to reuse.
Back to imaginary worlds and Kaufman’s identity crisis. It should be directed by Jonze, but it was busy with Where the Wild Things Are, from the director went even Charlie Kaufman. And he did a good job. The story is difficult to replicate, it’s a great work of theater director, who translates all his life, fears, psychoses, frustrations and desires in a play that does not end only with its author.
06. Shutter Island
If you have not seen yet, we not to divulge too much about it – Scorsese’s latest film takes place in a nursing home on an island, where two detectives are sent to investigate a mysterious disappearance, waking up in a world where nobody seems to be who they claim, a conspiracy in which only the main character seems to be normal.
The main character (follow major spoilers) is a convict… “reformed” with a program of memory erase. Instead of condemning them to death physical memory condemns them to death, brainwashed them, stuffing them other old memories and hope not to return. In Lazarus Project the memory of old life comes as a dream, like a previous life as a déjà vu about not know if happened, will happen or if you just dreamed.
04. The Machinist
Known too many as the movie in which Christian Bale has lost 28 kg, reaching at 54 kg. By the end of climax which reveals the truth, the film is a fantastic thriller about an obsessive chasing after a man that there not exist, a bloody game of Hangman, where you guessed parallel worlds, mixed timelines, relive and reformulated memories.
03. Waking Life
Is an animated feature made by the rotoscopy method (real footage is superimposed over a drawing “layer”, which accurately copy the movements, figures, action, as in A Scanner Darkly, for example). This movie is rather a kind of art documentary, is a series of meetings between the main character and other characters that appear in the waking state, but turn out to be dreams (every time when you’re in doubt if you are or you’re not in a dream, trying to turn out the light, learn from Waking Life, in dreams they say you fail).
Finding Neverland is a quasi-biographical story of writer JM Barrie and the inspiration for Peter Pan. Johnny Depp in the role of Barrie, is a film of fantasy world of Neverland that makes subtle shift in reality, bringing you in memory, almost like a making of, or as a documentary, the memorable scenes from Peter Pan (Disney animation in ’53 is still one of my favorite movies).
01. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Terry Gilliam’s last film is a trip and mind-bending you as a hypnotist, get dizzy like in a carousel, charms you like a conjurer. It’s a fantasy world of magic mirrors and imagination, you do not know when you went in “the other side” and for that the main actor (Heath Ledger) died during filming and was replaced by three other actors do not makes only to deepen the disorientation and disturb the viewer attempts to see this “rational” movie.
