Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem looms before us, inching ever closer, premiering at festivals and cons while cruelly denying us a US release date. Dammit, cinema gods! It’s been five years since Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and that wasn’t actually as good as we wanted it to be. (And we’re not even going to discuss what you did to Tideland.) Why do you hate us, cinema gods? Or more to the point, why do you hate Terry Gilliam? Perhaps you feed on the frustration caused by bureaucracy, and were thus frightened by Brazil? Perhaps you’ve always been pissed that your favorite Python (we’re just assuming Eric Idle here) didn’t go on to become a visionary director, and ours did? We’re finished with you cinema gods.
We’ll come back and worship you again if you give this movie a release date.
In the meantime, we can glory in the poster, and take a look at Gilliam’s director’s statement—like all of Gilliam’s films, it sounds like Zero Theorem is willing to ask difficult questions, and then stick a few more questions in where the answers are supposed to be:
“What gives meaning to our lives, brings us happiness? Can we ever be alone in our increasingly connected and constricted world? Is that world under control or simply chaotic? We’ve tried to make a film that is honest, funny, beautiful, and surprising; a simple film about a complex modern man waiting for a call to give meaning to his life; about inescapable relationships and the longing for love, full of quirky characters and sparkling performances; raising questions without offering obvious answers. Hopefully, it’s unlike any film you have seen recently; no zombies, no caped crusaders or alien spacecraft. Actually, I might have lied about that last item.”
You can watch an interview with Gilliam talking about Zero Theorem and a new Blu-ray of Time Bandits here, and check out his completely sober and sane opening video from San Diego Comic-Con that was shown along with clips from the film last month, and twitch in anticipation along with us:
