Undeniably
the iconoclastic and surrealist writer-director’s greatest critical, commercial
and arguable artistic success, Terry Gilliam’s expensive big screen
transposition of Chris Marker’s 1962 avant-garde short film La Jetée into
a modern day science-fiction thriller classic known as Twelve Monkeys (or 12 Monkeys
give or take) remains as envelope pushing, genre-convention defying,
confounding, fascinating and nightmarishly possible as it was when it first
released in 1995. Going on to spawn a
hit Syfy television series of the same name in 2015 as the film approaches its
23rd anniversary, the good folks at Arrow Video have given the
timelessly brilliant (or bonkers?) dystopian time-travel genre classic the 4K
special edition treatment and with it remind modern moviegoers just how far
inward you can reach with science-fiction.
Opening
in the distant post-apocalyptic future Hell of 2035 after a deadly virus
unleashed in 1996 wipes out most of humanity with those left alive foraging
deep in the underground, we meet prisoner/scientist(?) James Cole (Bruce Willis)
who has been granted a second shot at parole in exchange for being sent back in
time in an effort to track down the origin of the viral outbreak. Inadvertently sent to the wrong year, Cole
finds himself incarcerated yet again in 1990 before being institutionalized
where he crosses paths with Jeffrey Goines (newcomer Brad Pitt in an Academy
Award nominated performance), a mentally ill patient who may or may not have
more to do with a rogue animal rights activist group known as the Army of the
Twelve Monkeys than he leads on. Along
the way Cole encounters Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) who doubts the
potentially mad ravings of Cole’s futuristic prophecies.
The
fate and survival of all humankind depends on Cole’s findings, or does it? Cole himself is from a post-apocalyptic
future sent back in time to alter the course of history, or is he? One of the reasons why Gilliam’s film works
so well, drawing from a brilliant script by dystopian sci-fi classic Blade Runner screenwriters David and
Janet Peoples, is how it flirts and skirts between belief and doubt, suggesting
our hero is either really from the year 2035 or he’s simply insane. We’re as certain of the state of reality and
time we’re in as the characters and that is arguably the film’s greatest
strength. It would be very easy to paint
Cole’s journey as bona fide objective fact, but Gilliam provides such ample
room for skepticism that we’re constantly kept on our toes.
That
Terry Gilliam was able to realize this film under the watchful (and previously
combative) eye of Universal Studios is nothing short of miraculous, given the
now infamous public spat the director had with then-CEO Sidney Sheinberg over
the first entry in the loosely defined dystopian trilogy Brazil. A common joke among
industry insiders given the success of what is really an uncompromising work of
art made with Hollywood money and big movie stars is asking Mr. Sheinberg how
much he liked it. Moreover, this was
among the few pictures Gilliam himself didn’t write but took on as a
director-for-hire, satisfying the demands of the box office while still making
it through and through a pure Terry Gilliam picture.
This
is part in parcel to the film’s excellent cast and performances, with Bruce
Willis’ Cole carrying big, dangerous shoulders while also possessing a tangible
vulnerability. To see the action movie
hero Willis taking on such a director driven movie (as well as a massive pay
cut) remains a rare thing of beauty that only comes around once or twice in a
lifetime. Brad Pitt’s frenzied, manic
and twitchy Oscar nominated performance in and of itself is a wonder to behold
with the way he twists and jerks his head around and contorts his madcap
face. Now a big movie star and Hollywood
heartthrob, fans and/or detractors of Pitt are inclined to revisit arguably the
performance that successfully launched the actor’s career as a major industry
player. Equally strong is Madeleine Stowe
as the sole figure in the present 1990s era who has doubts about Cole’s story
but not outright denial either.
Visually
the film is, in the time-honored tradition of its réalisateur, luminous and oppressive.
Lensed by veteran Gilliam cinematographer Roger Pratt (Brazil, Batman) we’re
provided with an apocalypse torn future that in hindsight isn’t all that
dissimilar from the present day, furthering Cole’s (and our) confusion about
what’s real or imaginary. As with Brazil, the film sports a brilliant production design by Jeffrey Beecroft which
contains an eclectic mixture of set decoration of broken machines, television
screens, tarpaulin and a bevy of real derelict and decrepit locations perfectly
suited to Gilliam’s bleak and foreboding vision. We’re also gifted with a slightly madcap
score by Paul Buckmaster, with an opening cue inspired by Astor Piazzolla’s Suite Punta
del Este which sounds frankly like an
insane accordion teetering on the edge of madness.
A
still engrossing future noir and case study of how a revered short subject can
be transformed into a complex and enriching cinematic experience, Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys set the bar for
science-fiction filmmaking so high it remains to be seen if anything remotely
like it can be made in today’s studio tentpole driven system. In 2013, Gilliam would revisit dystopian
sci-fi once again with his slippery but still curious The Zero Theorem but never once does it grab with quite the
ferocity Twelve Monkeys does with
every viewing. Much like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and of course like
the screenwriters’ collaboration with Ridley Scott in 1982, Twelve Monkeys poses far more questions
than it intends to answer and suggests the story we’ve witnessed is far from
over and in continuum.
Like any of the
all-time great science-fiction films, the aims and interests are less concerned
with a standard beginning-middle-end than asking deep philosophical questions
about communication in an ever-evolving world increasingly dependent on
technological advancement and whether or not society as a whole is necessarily
better off for it. Moreover, we’re left
to wonder whether or not our own dreams and premonitory fears are just around
the corner of becoming flesh and blood reality.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki