Imaginaerum (film)

Imaginaerum by Nightwish is a fantasy film from Finnish- Canadian production, which appeared in 2012. It was developed together with the symphonic metal band Nightwish in addition to their eponymous album Imaginaerum. The film was funded by the Finnish Film Foundation with $ 575,000, the total budget was 3.7 million dollars. Imaginaerum celebrated on 10 November 2012 in Helsinki Premiere. On February 11, 2013, the German premiere took place in Berlin.

Action

The 75 -year-old musician Thomas Whitman suffers from dementia and falls after a long illness, at the end he did not even recognize his own daughter Gem, into a coma. While his daughter with him quarrels cease life support, Thomas enters in thoughts a fantasy world in which he lives through his life again. His memories start when, as a ten year old orphan boy a girl named Ann in the orphanage and meets a snow globe with a figure of Arabesque obtained. He meets a snowman named Mr. White, who persuaded him to come with him. Together they fly and hit Thomas ' father, a pilot. During the flight, Thomas loses his grip and lands in a disturbing, surreal world. There he first met the now 72 -year-old Ann, who warns him of Mr. White. At the next stop on his journey, a circus, he meets 30 -year-old versions of Ann and themselves as members of a band. Again appears the old Ann and explained to him that the snow man is responsible for his progressive dementia. At other stations Thomas experienced the loss of his wife and the suicide of his father.

In reality Gem arrives at her parents' house. It turns out that her mother was on a tour with Thomas and her band died in a car accident and Gem because of the absence of her father more and more distant from him. Ann opens a safe in the office of Thomas, who have unintelligible writings, which combined make sense only as a puzzle. Gem reads the texts and recognizes that her father distanced himself from it in order to protect them from themselves, fearing a similar bad influence, like his own father. Ann Gem and travel together to their father to the hospital.

In his dream world Thomas recovered the memories of his daughter, noting that Mr. White is a manifestation of his father. Thomas manages to break away from the grip of Mr. White. At the hospital, Thomas awakens from his coma and sees Ann and Gem next to his hospital bed. With his last strength, Thomas reconciled with his daughter and dies.

Back at home itself Gem is where the paternal piano. She notes that a sound is not played correctly, opens the piano and finds a small engraved plaque stuck between the strings. You placed the plaque on the snow globe, noticed the inscription "G Em " and recognizes that its name consists of the chords G and E minor. Gem begins to play on the piano and the figure in the snow ball starts dancing.

Publication

The world premiere took place on 10 November 2012 at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. In addition to the movie premiere, the audience expected an additional full-time concert of Nightwish. The Germany premiere took place on February 11, 2013 in the culture brewery Berlin in the presence of in Tuomas Holopainen and Marco Hietala instead. Originally, the film should then be listed once on 18 March 2013 a total of 98 cinemas in Germany and Austria, but the crowds in Germany was so great that further demonstrations in March and April were used. According to the film distribution Capelight Pictures Imaginaerum landed on the first day of performance in terms of sales at # 1 on the German cinema charts.

On May 31, 2013 Imaginaerum appeared on DVD, Blu -ray Disc and digital download.

Reception

In the general press was Imaginaerum total received little attention. In reviews, especially the musical staging was praised, criticized, especially the confused plot and the third-rate actor. The music magazine Metal Hammer called in its British edition the film as a " Must-See for Nightwish fans," praised the stunning images and the perfect integration of Nightwish album. The premiere of the film came in Finland rather negative press reports.

" The " Nightwish movie " would be like a Tim Burton -meets- Neil - Gaiman - splendid work. (...) The fact that for at Tuomas Holopainen & Co., the coal is missing is not the end. This should have been able to compensate with creativity and passion. Stupidly annoying " Imaginaerum " but with class B cast ( ..), which tell in wooden dialogues an outrageous bleak fantasy story, if one does not just unspannende special effects tear from nodding off or Holopainen can hang out as a composer the Hollywood epic poet. "

" [ ... ] The phenomenal soundtrack may indeed be a fan of the band forget the weaknesses in plot and Screenplay, the average viewer is likely to remain very dissatisfied with the work as a whole, especially action and atmosphere anyway appeal has only a very narrow audience. "

" Anyone who wants to see the movie just because of the band involved, should also pause briefly and ask if he can get used to the rest of the (...) film. Who but fantastic films with a great soundtrack and outstanding visual sceneries like, should be calm take a look. "

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film was released on 9 November 2012. The pieces, interpretations of songs from the album Imaginaerum, were written and implemented by Petri Alanko.

Occupation

Trivia

Originally the film was to be called only " Imaginaerum ". To avoid confusion with the homonymous album, as well as other productions, it was decided to expand the title to the notes "by Nightwish ".