Twelve Monkeys
Movies with multiple layers of meaning can be extremely hard to pull off historically, especially when you take into consideration the tolerance level of most viewers along with their attention spans, leading most to agree that itâs a rather futile effort. Keep it simple and one dimensional, and youâve got yourself a winner, especially in the American market. Of course, hardly anything is ever simple when one is talking about Terry Gilliam, the American born member of Monty Python who later renounced his citizenship while building his directing resume with a motley collection of literally insane movies (including the Python work) that exhibited a perfectionist attitude as well as a complete disregard for budgetary constraints which in turn has caused many a studio executive and accountant to have sleepless nights. But yet, he stays in demand with superstar actors and continues to direct big films because of that mad touch of genius that he seems to display so readily while coming up with wholly original, mindbending work that almost nobody else can touch with one of his greatest efforts being this 1995 release that just for starters was based upon a 1962 French short film called Le Jetee that was told entirely through the use of a black and white slideshow with narration and directed by a filmmaker named Chris Marker whose own face was never seen and whose life was always shrouded in mystery. THAT film told the story of a man who as a boy manages to witness his own death as an adult after he was sent back in time to that past era on a special mission. Gilliam expanded upon those ideas with not only the concept of a government manufactured super virus which winds up killing 5 billion people in 1996 and 1997 that leaves the survivors no choice but to live underground in a harsh gulag type environment, but also with the idea that the main character (played by Bruce Willis) who is quickly institutionalized when he is allegedly âsent backâ in time is possibly mentally ill himself, having created a complete freeform delusion of himself being from this supposed harsh future world when he has really been living in the present (OUR present) the entire time, with all types of little hints and clues to this being the case throughout the film, as real psychiatrists no doubt would testify to the fact that the seemingly irrational thoughts and beliefs shown here by Willis are just a mere tip of the iceberg to the real life raving, delusional thoughts of a bona fide paranoid schizophrenic, complete with the incorporation of real people and events in their lives as all being part of their crazed narrative. Such a theory definitely requires a second viewing of the film, as most first time viewers will no doubt be sucked up into the science fiction aspects of the story while ignoring the subtle clues throughout that it all might just be simply one manâs dementia (or just resist the idea completely due to feeling that it âruinsâ the story). The first part of the film (and arguably the only part that is actually REAL) finds Willis in 1990 being picked up by the cops after âarrivingâ and sent straight to the loony bin when they see that his adrenaline levels are so high that he has near superhuman strength. Once there he is treated by a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) who tries to convince him that his thoughts are just not sane, along with a panel of doctors led by Frank Gorshin (in a surprisingly welcome bit of casting) who can only shake their heads in disbelief even as they also resemble the somewhat sinister panel of âscientistsâ from the future who had given Willis his marching orders. He also meets a fellow patient played by an Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor Brad Pitt, giving a showy (but effective) turn as a fast talking lunatic whose most frightening quality is just how coherent his actual anti establishment thought processes are despite his outwardly warped demeanor even as it later seems obvious that heâs really more of a hyped up bullshit artist who has a method to his madness (and is also a precursor of Pittâs then future role as Tyler Durden in Fight Club). Then suddenly, Willis disappears after an escape attempt leaves him strapped down and heavily sedated, or at least seems to, as literally everything that happens later on in the movie from this point out can possibly be attributed to being an ongoing paranoid hallucination with all the seeds having been planted by that time (and moreso if you believe that the Stowe and Pitt characters had both made a real strong impression on Willis), with the viewer getting to choose whether or not the rest of the movie is really a science fiction story or just the impossibly ludicrous delusions of a broken, sick mind. Willis quickly finds himself strapped down back in the future being interrogated by the scientists and being told that Pitt is possibly believed to be one of the main suspects to have released the virus on the world since he was not only a known revolutionary but also the son of a famous virologist (Christopher Plummer) and this time gets sent back to the correct year of 1996 (via a quick stop in World War I where he gets shot in the leg) where Stowe has now made her lifeâs work that of analyzing the ramblings of mental patients who have declared themselves as being doomsday prophets (no doubt inspired by her encountering Willis in 1990) while Pitt has seemingly renounced his rebellious nature and is now living happily underneath his daddyâs thumb while still secretly leading his militant animal rights group (The Army Of The Twelve Monkeys). Worse, Willis has now started being taunted by a mysterious raspy voice whom appears to be another âvisitorâ from the future but has apparently escaped the clutches of the scientists (though it still feels a pressing need to contact and taunt him), implying that a tracking device in his teeth are how they maintain their control and surveillance over him even as itâs made very clear that the voice itself might just be one in his head and all just part of his illness. Willis quickly makes contact with Stowe and attempts to do the same with Pitt while operating on the theory that Pitt and his Twelve Monkeys flunkies were the ones who had released the virus (invented by his father) because their militant animal rights instincts were so pronounced that they considered doing so to be passing âjudgmentâ on the human race. The story plays out from there, with the most interesting aspects being the doctor / patient role reversal on hand, with Stowe coming to believe Willisâ crazy story so thoroughly and completely that she herself starts to behave irrationally (in a possibly more serious take on the Harley Quinn angle with The Joker in The Batman Universe) while Willis surprises even her by deciding that if the whole thing really is in his head, then that would mean that billions are not actually going to die and that he has nothing to worry about, leading him to proclaim his acceptance of being mentally ill and talking about wanting to âget betterâ. All of which leads down a fatal path where towards the end we start to wonder whether the scientists (if they really do exist) actually have the entire situation completely in hand and will now be able to extract a cure and vaccine for the disease in the future or possibly take even more drastic steps (with more misfit âvolunteersâ going back in time) to kill those guilty parties involved before the fact and thus guarantee the world to continue forward in normalcy. As we ponder these questions (and enjoy the tragic poetry of the ending), we continue to wonder just exactly how much of anything that weâve seen is real in and of itself, and (while forcing the requirement of at least a second viewing) shows that Gillium really is a master genius at the absolute top of his form here, refusing to give us those answers in a neat and tidy fashion while driving the viewers to the near brink of insanity trying to solve them ourselves. That is ultimately the driving force behind the lasting appeal of this film, inspiring a TV show many years later with the purpose of expanding upon those original themes and thus showing why major stars such as Pitt and Willis would accept reduced salaries in order to be able to work with Gilliam because they know damn well that their roles in his films would be ones that theyâd be remembered forâŚ
9/10