The Zero Theorem (2013)
Directed by Terry Gilliam
A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.
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What critics say influenced The Zero Theorem
With its echoes of "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451," the screenplay by Pat Rushin, a writer and English professor at the University of Central Florida, hits many of the same dystopian notes as Gilliam's "Brazil."
Screenwriter Richard Pushin was reportedly inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes, but the plot seems equally influenced by "Waiting for Godot," "1984" and the collected works of Franz Kafka (the latter two sources shaped Gilliam's " Brazil " as well).
There are satirical digs at consumption and globalisation, but the aesthetic is techno-whirligig junk shop – indoors and outdoors – with a touch of 1984 and a hint of funfair.
Escrito pelo estreante Pat Rushin, o roteiro se passa num futuro não especificado que, embora tomado por cores intensas e personagens que exibem vitalidade, não é muito diferente das distopias vistas em Os 12 Macacos, THX 1138 e 1984 .
In a none-too-subtle shoutout to “1984,” signs warn that Management is watching everywhere, incarnated in the figure of a character actually called Management (Matt Damon, sporting, like everyone else in the movie, a ridiculous hairpiece).
The offices for Mancom Corp. resemble a gaudy, smaller, steampunk version of the bureaucratic maze that Gilliam created for “Brazil,” via Michael Radford’s film version of “1984.”
I’m most privy to praise his masterwork “Brazil” or surrealist, self-referential comedy “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”; others love “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” or “The Fisher King.”
"Brazil" was the first chapter; "12 Monkeys" was the next.
You can just tell that this is a film by the man who brought us "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys," but it wouldn't be farfetched to say the visuals are sometimes reminiscent of "The Fifth Element" or even "Blade Runner."
(Gilliam has said that The Zero Theorem is the final installment in a trilogy of dystopian satires, following Brazil and Twelve Monkeys.)
We don’t expect mind blowing “Brazil”-level satirical explorations, or profound science fiction trips such as “12 Monkeys,” but we are happy to indulge our favorite mad uncle when he unveils something a little less groundbreaking, from somewhere in between, and that’s more or less what “The Zero Theorem” is.
With its echoes of "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451," the screenplay by Pat Rushin, a writer and English professor at the University of Central Florida, hits many of the same dystopian notes as Gilliam's "Brazil."
And who wouldn’t, given “Zero’s” vision of “Blade Runner” meets Chuck E. Cheese, with surveillance cameras?
Outdoors, the stylized landscape feels like "Blade Runner," with its rainy, neon-lit, crammed city streets.
It's set in a steam-punk, candy-colored "Blade Runner" world where our hero, Qohen Leth, works as a kind of metaphysical data analyst — an "entities cruncher" — for the giant corporation Mancom.
Christoph Waltz ("Inglourious Basterds," "Django Unchained") stars, playing Qohen, a worker drone of the future, which Gilliam envisions with a Dr. Seuss meets "Blade Runner" aesthetic.
You can just tell that this is a film by the man who brought us "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys," but it wouldn't be farfetched to say the visuals are sometimes reminiscent of "The Fifth Element" or even "Blade Runner."
Sometime in the perhaps not-too-distant future, The Zero Theorem finds hairless hypochondriac Qohen (Christoph Waltz), a professional hacker whose hatred of physical contact makes life in a crowded megacity that's equal parts Blade Runner and director Terry Gilliam's own Brazil a daily exercise in sheer misery, compounded by the fact that he's waiting for a mysterious phone call, a call that will somehow change his life and that he lives in understandable terror of missing.
With its echoes of "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451," the screenplay by Pat Rushin, a writer and English professor at the University of Central Florida, hits many of the same dystopian notes as Gilliam's "Brazil."
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But behind the surface jollity lurks the monolithic all-encompassing Mancom, at its heart a huge pulsating doom-machine straight out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis .
Visually, the director draws on everything from Metropolis to Lewis Carroll, not to mention, of course, a healthy dose of Nineteen Eight-Four.
Like "The Brothers Grimm" or "Tideland," "The Zero Theorem" requires time and multiple viewings to allow the viewer to really wrap his or her ahead around how meaningful and great it really is.
Because the films we have seen, at least since the start of the 21st century, have felt compromised (“The Brothers Grimm”), muddled (“The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus”) or borderline-unwatchable (“ Tideland”).
The overstuffed production design and antibureaucratic humor echo Gilliam's Brazil, whereas the air of apocalyptic dread recalls 12 Monkeys and the misbegotten Tideland.
Dig into them and you’ll find a sound structure; “Tideland” is not the most pleasurable film, but it is an aching look at isolation and loss (and featured, in Jodelle Ferland, one of the all-time great kid performances).
Those who made it to the end of “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” or “Tideland” will be amazed to find Gilliam sinking even further here than those low-water marks.
Over the past decade, in “Tideland” (2005) and “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” (2009), Gilliam has taken to scattering images much as a military aircraft dispenses chaff—shiny showers of diversionary material, deflecting all efforts to track its course.
The genius that made “Time Bandits” and “The Fisher King” hasn’t made a good film since 1998, when he adapted Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
But the impish Monty Python veteran whose overflowing creativity gave rise to "Time Bandits," "12 Monkeys" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" will need to get out of his current thematic rut if he's to match those films' enduring greatness, much less that of "Brazil."
It might not be a return to the form of “Time Bandits,” “Brazil,” “The Fisher King” and “ Twelve Monkeys,” but it’s a lot better than what we’ve had from Gilliam in the last decade, and we sincerely hope there’s plenty more to come.
After establishing his surrealistic voice as house animator for Monty Python and making an impressive break into live-action filmmaking as director of the cult hits Time Bandits and Brazil and the hit-hits The Fisher King and 12 Monkeys, Gilliam hit a rough patch after the turn of the century.
You can just tell that this is a film by the man who brought us "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys," but it wouldn't be farfetched to say the visuals are sometimes reminiscent of "The Fifth Element" or even "Blade Runner."
(Gilliam has said that The Zero Theorem is the final installment in a trilogy of dystopian satires, following Brazil and Twelve Monkeys.)
According to filmmaker Terry Gilliam, this sci-fi fantasy completes the dystopian trilogy that began with “Brazil” (1985), followed by “Twelve Monkeys” (1995).
But at his best, in "Brazil," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," or "Twelve Monkeys," the imaginative flights and detours are absorbing enough to sustain interest.
Shaved to look like Bruce Willis in Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys and equally confused, Waltz’ character is a curiously inflected oddball who talks of himself using the first person plural (a real test for an audience asked to emphasise) and spends much of the running time courting forbidden love online with kooky blank, Melanie Thierry, while trying to crunch impossible numbers.
"The Zero Theorem," his first science fiction movie since 1996's "Twelve Monkeys," is a visual dazzler on the level we'd expect from the director.
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A film that's even remotely in tune with this theme should probably be sleek, sexy, maybe even deliberately impersonal (see Minority Report , which literally predicted the future), so as to capture the corporate allure that's dangled so brilliantly in front of our eyes.
Where the likes of Minority Report are thematically dystopian, but fetishise the gleaming technology, Gilliam has a cartoonist’s eye for bullshit: the street advertisements in his lousy future address passers-by as the wrong sex, the pizzas sing annoying ditties, and digital communications are a great new way to not listen to each other.
Working on a very modest budget, Gilliam has created a future that is a clash of Minority Report and Lego Land, as seen through the eyes of Joel Schumacher (Batman & Robin).
(Like Minority Report , the film imagines that ads will eventually be individually targeted; here, they actually follow their targets around, becoming more and more urgent the longer they’re ignored.)
Regardless, it’s the perfect gig for a glum and tortured soul like Qohen, who’s haunted by a literal void in his mind – Gilliam introduces us to the character with a “2001: A Space Odyssey” reference, a shot in which Qohen floats, nude and hairless as a newborn, toward a massive, galaxy-devouring black hole.