Hats off to Terry Gilliam! He must surely be one of the world’s most important living filmmakers today. And has been for quite some time now.
Gilliam’s most recent adventure, The Zero Theorem, is, as usual, a fantastic fairy tale commenting on our own dismal times. Set in a not-too-distant future, we get to follow Qohen Leth, a diligent but frustrated worker (“entity cruncher”) who lacks a purpose in life. He waits for a magical phone call that will set him free, i.e. provide him with a sense of existential direction. Alas, no such call seems to be forthcoming, and Qohen gradually realizes that perhaps the dystopian brainwashing command of his “management” is perhaps true after all: “Everything is nothing”.
Terry Gilliam’s films are “real” films, in the sense that they make us aware of the basic human condition in a form that both entices visually and enhances mentally. There’s plenty of intelligent eye candy in this philosophical cine-gem but the core of its essential value lies in the fundamental display of seemingly eternal human dilemmas and speculations in an endearing way. Not at all an easy task!
Where his fellow Monty Pythons developed a profitable and populistic regurgitation of knock-knock jokes (albeit occasionally brilliantly), Mr Gilliam has stuck with providing us with exquisite exposés of the human condition and its delusions and illusions of grandeur, always steeped in psychedelic and surreal sensibilities. The Zero Theorem is no exception. It’s a one of a kind film and must be seen.
