Twelve Monkeys (1995)

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Twelve Monkeys (1995) – T. Gilliam

After watching a few dud films in a row, I returned to Terry Gilliam’s classic time travel thriller as a sort of palette cleanser, rejuvenating balm – and it did not disappoint.  Using Chris Marker’s La Jetée as a launching pad, Gilliam and writers David and Janet Peoples, flesh out the narrative, which sees a man, James Cole (Bruce Willis), sent from a post-apocalyptic future (where a purposefully released virus has killed most of humanity, sending survivors underground for decades) back to the 1990s to uncover clues that scientists can use to create a vaccine and reclaim the world above.  Of course, no one believes him and he is immediately committed to a mental hospital where he meets psychiatrist Madeleine Stowe and patient Brad Pitt (who become important to the plot later on).  One undercurrent in the film focuses on whether Cole is really from the future or possibly just really mentally ill – and in true Gilliam-fashion, leads us to ponder our own understanding of reality, truth, and the myth of mental illness.  But the real action follows Cole as he bounces back and forth from the future to the present, perhaps accidentally changing the course of events (if that is actually possible), and slowly piecing together clues that reveal the involvement of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys in the events leading up to the virus’s release across the world.  The scientists of the future need this information but Cole is also driven to understand a memory that he had as a small boy (in the time just before the virus hit), of seeing people die in an airport, a memory that returns to him in a recurring dream and which is growing in familiarity the longer he stays in the 1990s.  Director Chris Marker spent his career pondering memory’s emotional sway over us, with Hitchcock’s Vertigo a particular touchstone (so it comes as no surprise that we see a clip here, when the protagonists escape into a movie theatre). Ultimately, even with all of the Hollywood baggage that could have dragged the film down, Gilliam manages to capture the same feelings, the pull of nostalgia, the pangs of lost times, and he does it while still stamping his own style on the proceedings.  Worth another look (and no, I haven’t seen the subsequent TV series).