Terry Gilliam 2013 UK/Romania
Starring: Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Thierry, David Thewlis, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Lily Cole
To refer to any film as unique in modern times is going to come off as a trite, even lazy statement, perhaps a desperate attempt to describe what the speaker hasn't been able to fully comprehend, but The Zero Theorem, Terry Gilliam's latest dystopian, satirical carnival of the bizarre, is hard to encapsulate in any other way. Set in a patchwork, graffiti-strewn, violent advertising factory of a city it tells the story of Qohen Leth, a world and tech weary 'entity-cruncher' in the midst of a complete breakdown and in search of the meaning of existence and his own life. As played by a practically unrecognisable (and in every scene) Christoph Waltz he's one of the most sprawlingly complex characters in all of Gilliam's history. The first time we see him he's naked and completely hairless, almost infantilised and closed off using the dilapidated church come black hole he calls home as a cocoon as if he's returned to the womb and found it lacking. His every move is being watched via a cacophony of CCTV cameras, the chief of which replaces the face of Christ on his altar, and as we're reminded by a street image of his boss, the tea-sipping, silently dominating, Mancom owner Management (portrayed by a zebra printed Matt Damon) 'everything is under control', although a better phrase would be controlled. He can't be touched, has lost his ability to taste and feel and seems unable to speak in anything other than the third person plural. A man in crisis certainly but the whole world appears to be no different, a corporate wet dream at once futuristic and frighteningly foreseeable where everybody is a implement and the only holy grail (pardon the pun) is a call that will explain everything. Obviously this isn't exactly new territory for Gilliam - Brazil and Monty Python's Meaning Of Life took on an Orwellian state and the secret to humane truth respectively - but it's about as achingly desperate for answers as any director this side of Darren Aronofsky's Pi could possibly get. As it happens Pi is a good reference point with the leading men of both looking for a seemingly endless mathematical formula wanted by the commercial and soul-searching populace and that could bring about an end or a new beginning to reality itself and from which there is apparently no escape. Joining Leth on his journey are Tilda Swinton's rapping, Scottish online therapist Dr Shrink Rom, David Thewlis' simultaneously hostile, disrespectful and friendly supervisor Joby (alternating between Elmer Fudd impressions, a tiger suit and office kitsch), Lucas Hedges' Bob, raised purely to unravel code to the point that he twitches and falls apart at the sight of a pizza delivery girl's gravity-defying cleavage, and Mélanie Thierry's flirtatious, voracious, chameleonic Bainsley, attempting seduction in a creaking PVC nurses uniform, both terrifying and tantalising Qohen, too false to be truly sexy and at her most attractive when she's trying the least. All have impressive characterisation but when it comes down to it they may be no more than 'tools' in the employ of the deity-like Management (something he denies) if indeed they exist at all that is; at points it seems as if the entire metropolis may be of Qohen's own fevered creation. And of course there are no typical resolutions or attempts at explanation, even the revelatory 'I' moment is slipped in almost clandestinely before the narrative moves on, its very importance drained away. Multiple viewings may help as there are practically a myriad of wondrous ideas and blink-and-you'd-miss-them-moments - among them a pizza box that sings a greeting like a novelty birthday card when opened, Lily Cole on a moving advertising board, an image of a politician eerily reminiscent of Boris Johnson plastered on the front of a bus and Ben Whishaw's cameo as one of a trio of ineffectual, philosophising doctors; apparently Robin Williams is in there somewhere too - but there are no answers offered. Perhaps predictably this means that the film isn't quite fully realised although this might be because Gilliam would surely run the risk of ending up like Qohen if he attempted it.
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