With each generation comes the same feeling of nothingness and monotony to the present. People get stuck in dead-end jobs with neuroses and apprehensions, and the new wave of technology doesn’t appear to change much. Terry Gilliam’s ‘80s sci-fi “Brazil” captured the Orwellian state with such surreal humor and visual creativity that its now 30-year-old vision of the 21st Century has made it a cult classic.
Gilliam’s latest “The Zero Theorem” is awfully close to being “Brazil 2.0”, a satirical reimagining of another not-too-distant future that matches “Brazil” structurally, visually and to an extent thematically. Critics have faulted Gilliam for doing a remix of his greatest hits, but his idiosyncratic message is as relevant now as it was then.
“The Zero Theorem” tells the story of Qohen (Christoph Waltz), pronouncing his name “Cohen” with a Q, but no U. Years ago he received a phone call that he believed would tell him the meaning of why he was put on this Earth, but he got disconnected in excitement and now lives in an old church vicariously waiting for that call back. His work involves a new form of computer programming, one that has reduced work to video gaming and inscrutable equations. Qohen begs his supervisor (David Thewlis) to work from home to await his precious call, and in exchange, Management (Matt Damon) puts him to the task of deciphering The Zero Theorem. Continue reading “The Zero Theorem”