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...
