Outside of the occasional bit of goofball hair band nostalgia, I’ve never really been a serious metal guy. I’ve always voted Hagar over Roth, and I was the asshole who didn’t understand what all the fuss was about Jethro Tull winning the first Metal Grammy over Metallica. I mean, Crest Of A Knave was a kick ass album, right? Anyway, all of this serves to predicate the fact that I was unaware of the Finnish Metal band Nightwish before I watched Imaginaerum, a dark musical fantasy film designed to showcase their music and macabre style. Had I been aware of this before hand, I might have been hesitant to sit through what sounds like it might turn out to be a glorified feature length music video. Luckily I walked into this movie blind, free of any preconceptions, and walked out having experienced something refreshingly original.
Imaginaerum
is the story of a man slowly succumbing to dementia, struggling to
maintain some semblance of himself as pieces of his mind gradually
slip away or get mixed up with his morbid imagination. The twist –
almost the entire movie takes place inside of his mind, with the
protagonist shifting between ages and exploring a fantasy realm set
to the music of the man's life as a rock star. That probably sounds
like a spoiler, but we find it out fairly early on, even though its
not explicitly spelled out in any exposition, which is the first
thing I loved about the movie. At no point does the film even make a
move to hold the audiences hand and try to explain what's going on in
the moment, trusting our patience to let the events unfold and come
together in their own time, which they do beautifully by the end.
I'll
admit, I'm the dark whimsy guy, so I'm kind of an easy mark for a
movie like this. I mean, how was I not going to like a movie that can
be described as a boy's magical adventure into his own nightmares
with his best friend, Evil Steampunk Frosty The Snowman? And yet,
I've seen this kind of thing fail spectacularly before, so just
because this seemed early on like a movie I liked, I wasn't
necessarily sure it would sustain the level of excitement it built to
in the first few minutes. Thankfully, the energy and mystery keeps
going until the final minutes, ending with a literal roller coaster as
crazy as the emotional one the film takes you on throughout.
The
trick is, though the imagery is often bizarre and random, or rather
seems like it in the moment, it all eventually comes together and
means something in the end. This isn't David Lynch style arbitrary
dreamscapes that just throw a bunch of stuff out there to be weird
for the sake of being weird. All of the disparate elements coalesce
into a surprisingly deep and moving story of a man who unwittingly
imposed the sins of his own father onto his only daughter, continuing
a cycle of neglect that ruined his relationship with the one person
he cared about and has now left him alone when he is in his most
vulnerable state.
That
emotional father/daughter dynamic is at the heart of the movie even
amid all the madcap insanity, and as the fairy tale gives way to a
redemptive story, the impact of their reunion and the healing of
their relationship sneaks up on you a little bit. At some point you
realize that things can only really end one way here, as the main
character is literally on his death bed, but the stakes still remain
important and the suspense of whether or not he'll accomplish what he
needs to even if its all just in his head still works. Rarely do
films centered around this kind of internal psychological drama
transcend the impulse to craft hokey symbolism as a substitute for a
story worth investing in, but this one has.
As
for the music, well, its good I suppose if your into this kind of
thing, which isn't really my cup of tea. Maybe I'm not the best
judge, but I can say that the soundtrack does compliment the action
very well, escalating from maudlin to triumphant as the story demands
it. Given the close association with the band Nightwish, in
retrospect I'm surprised that there are only two points in the film
where I would say it basically becomes a music video, and even then,
it works in context. These scenes, one in a night club and another at
a creepy circus where the band actually appears onscreen and plays might seem self-indulgent, but then the whole point of the movie is
one man's introspection, so it kinda fits, and by that point I was
already sold, so it didn't really bother me even if it otherwise
might have.
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