In many of the projects that Christoph Waltz takes on, he plays a man with a definite mission. In Inglourious Basterds, he needed to hunt down Lt. Aldo Raine and his Nazi hunters. Django Unchained ‐ he was a bounty hunter searching for criminals in exchange for rewards. And for Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem, the stakes are a just a little bit higher.
Waltz plays Qohen, a man whose life is spent waiting for a mysterious phone call while attempting to solve the Zero Theorem, a discovery that will prove that all existence is meaningless. Though the eccentric Qohen rarely leaves his den to venture outdoors because of the whole “working on a groundbreaking discovery that will shatter everything we’ve ever known” deal, this clip gives us a glimpse of the fantastical world Gilliam has created outside Qohen’s home.
Check it out for yourself:
Though visually brilliant and bright, it’s instantly clear why Qohen doesn’t get out more: the future is awful. It’s equal parts the Capitol from The Hunger Games and Luke Wilson’s nightmare future from Idiocracy with bizarre high fashion coating the streets and brash advertisments blaring from every building. But let’s be honest ‐ if The Church of Batman the Redeemer is supposed to be a commentary on the sad state of dumb pop culture driven society, then it failed, because I would join that house of worship in a heartbeat. Holy Batman, Batman.
Qohen sticks out like a sore thumb, and kind of looks like Uncle Fester if we’re getting personal, but it’s his defeated face palm at the end of the clip that really nails this. Can’t a man just take a break from his work without getting inundated with advertisements? I hear converting to Batmanism really helps with this sort of thing.
The Zero Theorem has no U.S, release date at this time. [ComingSoon.it, via The Playlist]
