The Zero Theorem: Zero = 100%

Okay cards on the table first. Yes, Terry Gilliam's latest world of wonderful weirdness The Zero Theorem came out back in March, several weeks ago. You may also remember that it came out and screened in cinemas for about ten minutes before being shoved aside for the latest half-hearted Hunger Games/Twilight clone. But thanks to the good people at Bristol's Cube Cinema I was able to catch a screening last week, one well worth the trip to Stokes Croft.

I'm somewhat glad I was able to see this in the hindsight of Richard Ayoade's The Double because, while I mostly liked The Double, The Zero Theorem feels like the film it wants to be. A far more nuanced take on individuality built organically into the world of the film. And with a conclusion that offers a satisfying level of complexity for such a weighty subject.

The near-future of The Zero Theorem is one with an abundance of colour. Stark, neon colours carelessly plastered onto grey streets and glum people. Vibrant adverts register each member of the public, screaming offers of meaning at them yet acknowledge no one as an individual. The ostentatious aesthetics of Gilliam's world are embraced by people desperately seeking uniqueness, even if it is only an empty illusion.

The only one sharp to this is our protagonist Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) who despite his eccentricity and intellect knows he is not unique. He refers to himself with plural pronouns, dresses in the dreariest grey and is as bald as an unformed foetus. However despite his logical nature Qohen is a man of faith. Not religious faith, although living in a Christian Church, a monument to the original deification of the individual, suggests otherwise. Qohen has faith that a phone call is coming, not yet another cold call but one intended for him and him alone, one that will reveal his life's meaning.

Naturally then Qohen would prefer to work from home, which the shady spectre of 'Management' (Matt Damon) permits provided he can solve The Zero Theorem, a complex mathematical formula  that will determine if the universe is really for nothing. With Qohen at work it is a combination of Gilliam's absorbing direction of Waltz's frustrated performance that keep you watching. You'll be surprised how much sympathy can be wrought from watching a man fiddle with computer graphics on a screen but the aggressive anxiety of Qohen is both funny and sad. It helps of course that even the smallest prop is an oddity, adding an air of absurdity to an otherwise mundane narrative.

To break the flow of Qohen's misery comes the lascivious Bainsley (Melanie Thierry), a woman hired by Management to ease his mind via the virtual world. The chemistry between Waltz an Thierry is charming enough but it remains transparent throughout that this is an entirely artificial relationship. While Qohen is eventually willing to believe in it unfortunately we aren't. The relationship does crash in the end and it crashes hard, but had this been better built as something potentially genuine it might have resonated better with the audience.

The second interloper into Qohen's misery is Bob (Lucas Hedges), Management's teenage computer prodigy. Bob is the personification of individual potential, enormous talent with no clearly defined path even if the Orwellian Overloads are trying to pave one for him. Instead he indulges in base pleasures, lust and gluttony which eventually rubs of on Qohen. In many ways he is Qohen's opposite, seeing himself as individual while the rest of humanity is a nameless mass unworthy of the brain cells it would take to identify.

While Bainsley's influence on Qohen is intended to reinforce Qohen's worldview Bob eventually serves to break it. Forcing him to realise that his phone call is nothing but a delusion, that his life may truly be as meaningless as the universe itself. Bob's solution to the existential truth of reality is to placate himself with life's pleasures, to him his life has meaning. Managment's is entirely corporate, a business believes that nothing is for nothing as long as there is profit to be made. And for one brief moment Bainsley had found meaning in Qohen.

As Qohen's worldview and reality collapse around him it becomes clear that if existence does not matter then neither does agonising over it. The only meaning of any value to Qohen is that which he creates for himself. The film strands him in a virtual reality, or a dream it really no longer matters. But there he has control, he can create meaning, he can be one.

While there are some weaknesses to Qohen's story Gilliam's direction makes it feel like a seamless character journey. Flowing from scene to scene organically in a world which is both a visual joy and perfect reflection of the film's theme. Engaging, funny and poignant The Zero Theorem may not meet the success of it's spiritual predecessor Brazil but I feel it'll stand as one of the directors better works.

Elysium: A World Away From the Next Best Blockbuster

Little has been heard of Neill Blompkamp since his debut with 2009’s District 9. Unlike similar breakout Duncan Jones who followed his thoughtful character piece Moon with a much more adrenaline-fueled flick in the form of Source Code before apparently being headhunted for the long-awaited Warcraft film. But Blompkamp has evidentially only been in seclusion so that he could dedicate the thought and hard work into making a film worthy of the respect he now commands. So, what exactly is the follow up to his high-octane apartheid allegory? A high-octane immigration allegory, naturally.

The year is 2154 and most of Earth has been reduced to over-polluted and overpopulated favelas where the citizens live in squalor and struggle to live day to day. The wealthiest citizens having long-since left Earth behind for the space station Elysium, a picture perfect recreation of suburban Beverly Hills. Transport into Elysium is rigorously monitored by the coldly authoritarian Delacourt, who shoots down attempting immigrants without hesitation, even against the orders of her (slightly) more moderate superiors. This is all despite the fact that Earthlings are trying to desperately enter Elysium just the access their space-age medical bay, capable of curing any disease and healing any injury.

One such would-be immigrant is Max (Matt Damon), a master criminal gone straight who more or less embodies the working class schmo in a way both completely transparent yet extremely effective. After a workplace accident leaves Max with only days to live he calls upon his former crime boss Spider (Wagner Moura) to smuggle his into Elysium. Spider can do it but the plan involves and outfitting Max with a spindly but durable exoskeleton to go up against not only the security drones of Earth but Kruger (Sharlto Copley), a similarly suped-up psychopath who acts as Delacourt’s enforcer.  Complications also arise when Max’s plan interrupts a political coup on Elysium and his former love Frey (Alice Braga) gets taken hostage along with her (what else) terminally sick daughter.

As much as I can deride Elysium for its more clichéd elements, the hammering home of its ideology and the cheesy attempts to endear us to Frey’s daughter, it cannot be denied that it works. All the elements push Max on a journey to realise the selfishness in his aspiration for a life of ease of Elysium. Culminated in a satisfactory character arc that feels real and informed by the weight of the situation around him and the consequences of the people he cares about. It’s one of the most endearing and true-to-life performances of Damon’s career, even as he punches robots in the face.

Speaking of true-to-life Blompkamp may have constructed the most believable vision of the future seen in years, a crowded dusty landfill, with crumbling blocks of flats reaching to the sky. A place where, at any minute you expect Wall-E to wheel through and start cleaning. The technology is little more than high-powered mods of our own AK-47 and Nissan’s, covered in dirt and scratches. Even the design on Max’s exoskeleton looks like something weathered with use, in short it’s a future that’s been lived in, perhaps more so than it can take.  By contrast Elysium looks like the epitome of privilege; lush green lawns with perfectly cut grass, vast houses of squeaky clean glass and marble. All of it as hollow and artificial as the superiority of the people populating it.

It’s probably for this reason that few of Elysium’s residents are characterised. From the militant authoritarianism of Delacourt, played to chilling perfection by Jodie Foster, to the frustrated apathy of Max’s boss Carlyle (William Fichtner) who is so disdainful of the lower classes he literally has the word ‘rich’ branded on his face (technically ‘riche’). While this feels like a consequence of the films breakneck rush through Elysium, much to its fault, it’s hard to see how they could top the cast of characters stranded on Earth. Alice Braga’s Frey may be the epitome of the blockbuster love interest, right down to getting kidnapped, but provides a sympathetic example of how even the best of the have-nots are left behind in this broken society. Meanwhile Wagner Moura pulls a surprising turn as crime boss Spider, introduced as a heartless profiteer slowly transforming into determined freedom fighter. Arguably it is he who is allowed the most complexity of character and Moura sells the hell out of it.At the end of the day though the real scene stealer is Copley whose Kruger is the ultimate extreme of the psychotic henchman.  Erratic and brutal with joyous cruelty dripping from every line of dialogue, the best kind of stock character with never a dull moment in his presence. Especially jarring as a follow up to the spineless bureaucrat we saw him as in District 9, demonstrating Copely’s considerable range. 

If one has to pick a flaw with Elysium it’s that it rarely gives itself time to breathe and perhaps do something more creative with the world it’s built. So much is offered of Earth, the sense of community, the criminal underclass, the oppression of the droids. But it’s a shame it can’t offer the same of the Disneyland that hovers above it, what its people are like, how it would deal with Delacourt’s rule. Nor can it offer more creativity with its action beats which largely consist of the same misty body splatters and fistfights from District 9. Thankfully though because of the empathetic characters and fleshed out world the film remains the most engaging and thoughtful rides I’ve had all summer. The easiest to recommend by worlds apart.