30.05.1996

The whirligig of time

John Craig reviews Twelve Monkeys (directed by Terry Gilliam, 1996)

Some of the readers of the Weekly Worker may know Terry Gilliam as the animator on the comedy series Monty Python (giant Renaissance feet coming down from on high and so on). Others may know him as the grimacing Cardinal Fang in the Spanish Inquisition sketch of the same series (“No - not the comfy chair”). Or indeed as the old man who asks potential victims three dangerous questions before letting them cross a bridge in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“What is your favourite colour?”).

But there is more to this talented man than just these comic creations. Gilliam is a film director, and films like Brazil, Time Bandits and The Fisher King have shown him to be a director with a powerful and far-ranging imagination.

His latest film confirms this reputation. Twelve Monkeys is about futuristic time travel. Human beings of the future have been driven underground by a terrible chemical plague which has destroyed most of humanity. A convict, played by that much underestimated actor Bruce Willis, is sent back in a time machine to try and stop the plague before it happens. Back in this century, he is confined in a lunatic asylum. He escapes and abducts his psychiatrist, played by Madeleine Stowe. She goes from being a kidnap victim to being his only friend as he tries to carry out his mission.

This brief description only scratches the surface of the film. Gilliam’s vision is a bleak one which seems to imply that life is not about progress but about cycles that repeat themselves. The intricate plot makes this one of those films that may require more than one viewing to be comprehensible. But see it if you can. As this century approaches its end, seeing into the future will be more and more fashionable, but Gilliam will be hard to beat in a cinema world where ‘plot by numbers’ is all too common.

John Craig