Imaginaerum

Finnish Book of the Dead. Or perhaps of Dying. Or perhaps of Living? This film is imagined to life by the band Nightwish. Don't get me wrong - you can watch it even if you haven't heard of them at all. But it would be a bit like watching Dune without having read the books. If you are a Nightwish fan, this is a must see. I'm a fan myself, not die-hard, but still fan enough to have all their albums and having listened to them many times over. I loved seeing them in the film, I enjoyed seeing Tuomas, Marco and the rest very much. I used to cherish Tarja-era Nightwish and rejoice to hear Floor joining them, but I didn't appreciate Anette much and felt ashamed because of it. Now I'm happy to have shed my guilt and to appreciate Anette much more. But back to the film. Right away I have to draw a few parallels: The Velocity of Gary, The Book of Stars and Big Fish jumped to mind. Tim Burton has been rightly mentioned here already. This is a film to be contemplated and returned to and, as such, it is definitely not a kiddie movie. I've seen my fair share of fantasy flicks in my time and wasn't in the mood to add one more to the collection, but, as the story - or rather, the flashbacks of a fading mind - progresses, the fantasy becomes a visual framework to illustrate the story and the ideas behind it - and the story doesn't get beaten up and buried by special effects. That'll be the first, yeah? I wish Hollywood would learn this neat trick - to preserve the story, despite all the visual fireworks. Perhaps its the budget? If Hollywood would cut a few billions off the CGI department, maybe the movies would become better? Imaginaerum is beautiful as a whole: the special effects are stunning (unless you're a Transformers fan), the cast look like they really care about the story - which does become clearer towards the end - and it's all well carried by the soundscape (by Nightwish). I live and breathe science fiction and for me it is always about us, human beings (unless it is really badly written). Imaginaerum is - at least for me - about the human spirit, about our essence. It is about us striving to finish the last page of our story - even if everything around us - or we ourselves - is falling apart and fading into nothingness. "As for me," said the little prince to himself, "if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water." ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I went to Hartwall to see the premiere on 10/11-2012. As a longtime fan of the band it was really exciting too see if they could transform a great celebration to life such as the album Imaginaerum to a full time (almoast) movie. They did! For all nightwish fans this is a must see. For others that don't know much about Nightwish this is a weird movie indeed. A mixture of The classic Snowman (1982) and some Tim Burton mixed with Holopainens (I guess) fear for what will happened after his roller-coaster has stopped with Nightwish. The Imaginaerum album is for me an emotional journey within myself. The movie projects that journey to Whitman thankfully. (My fear was that the movie should touch me as deeply as the album. But thankfully it did not. ) Still its a great Nightwish movie and the score is also beautifully arranged. I believe the movie will have some reference audio class for the home movie enthusiast. Could be wrong, but the sound and volume was impressive in Hartwall! And if you like me also love the moodier instrumental arrangements by Nightwish you must go buy The Score. Animations (lots of them and green screen effects) was also well done if you consider the budget. A great step forward compared to the Nightwish videos you have seen with animations.

In few words Imaginaerum is a dive into a man's surreal dark dreams with superior strengths in terms of powerful images and music and some minor weaknesses in character development and acting. What may appear as another childish adventure at first quickly develops into an emotionally demanding journey dealing with very adult conflicts on a metaphorical and artistic level.

In detail Imaginaerum starts off rather associative. Really strong pictures and music (reminding me of Tim Burton movies) guide the audience from the very first second deep down the rabbit hole. The Scenery is especially impressive considering the budget of the movie. While technically being a convincing and easy show, scene jumps and plot appear rather cryptic at first. The movie succeeds at creating a rough and positively incomplete idea of the plot in your head quickly and developing that idea scene by scene throughout the whole movie without letting anything become too obvious or boring. The basic ideas appear metaphorical, yet decipherable and believable. I might add that Imaginaerum demands much (but not too much) of the viewer rationally as well as emotionally: It requires active thinking to follow the central plot and it is necessary to apply yourself to the emotions of the movie to understand the scenes. Not doing so will greatly decrease the value of the experience (and may result in questionable reviews some might have read so far).

The only downside to me is that there was unutilized potential of even deeper character development. They all started interesting but ended a little abrupt. In addition I was not totally convinced by some character acting. In some moments I got that "There is an actor playing a character"-feel which shouldn't come up. Surprisingly it didn't affect emotion and meaning of the movie too much so I can overlook that weakness easily. Having mentioned weaknesses I also want to mention that there were many great moments in terms of acting as well. For example I really enjoyed the great performance of actor Tuomas Holopainen!

Imaginaerum as a "band-movie": I don't consider myself a Nightwish fan even though I don't dislike their music. I was positively surprised that Imaginaerum, in contrast to other band movies, did not make it a 2 hours narcissistic music video. A few times the band is on screen but only adding positively to the atmosphere.

As being someone who enjoys strong images, demanding plots and artistic implementations I totally recommend this movie to my friends and to you. I advise parents to be cautious showing Imaginaerum to children, as some scenes "can be disturbing" (as other reviewers already mentioned) and the movie as a whole may be hard to understand. I personally recommend this above 12 years of age.

Having just finished watching this, and then reading the other reviews I am at a loss for all the fuss about the sub par special effects. They looked a lot better than the 250 million dollar Oz the Great and Powerful, which felt sadly fake in near every scene, and both movies are fantasy, so I saw nothing lacking in the special effects. The dialog in the opening of the movie for about 20 minutes is really just not great, but being a fan of Nightwish I stayed with the movie, and was glad to do so by the halfway mark. The other reviewers pointed out the homages so I will skip them. Coming at this film after seeing Tommy, The Wall, and Harry Potter films, I was not left in the lurch as many were about what was going on. I knew darn well I was seeing symbolism at every turn and was enthralled by it. The scene where the generations overlap in their pain was pure brilliance on the screen. I had never seen optics used in such a way to juxtapose two time periods and create a mood while still piling on the symbolism to even deeper meanings. The skipped words between characters in certain scenes is tasty for those who like being appreciated by the filmmakers to be smart enough to recognize what they were - like with the combination. It may not start out tidy but it gets that way. I was surprised by the idea that it was a movie with music and not a music movie. I was under the impression it would be more like Tommy than The Wall, it's not. The brief appearances by the band did leave me wanting way more, because I am fan of the group, but it didn't hurt the movie a bit. If only the beginning was as good as the rest I would give it all the stars, but it does open so poorly it would not be honest.

I had no idea what this film was about nor had i ever heard of this film until torrentday. This is truly an epic film and one that i will not be forgetting for a long time.

The acting the graphics are faultless and the music score by for me an unknown nightwish fits the film perfectly. Some scenes may be too harsh for kids.

This is a film that baffles but easy to put together with a truly wonderful and emotionally ending.

Will my friends like it? probably not. But i can truly say i will not enjoy a film like this again for a long time.

My hat is off Stobe Harju.