There are many ways to look at the future. As the 21st-century marches on, we have gotten used to picturing it as a dystopia-ridden wasteland, a product of neo-fascism and climate change. However, the future was once bright, a land of peace and prosperity, full of shiny buildings and flying cars. On the margins of this road that leads from hope to despair, there are those that look at the future and think “Well, just how different from the past can it be?”. That seems to be the case of director Terry Gilliam in his now classic 1995 sci-fi drama 12 Monkeys. A loose remake of the 1962 experimental film La Jetée, directed by Chris Marker, the film follows a time-traveler in the year 1996 as he tries to gather information about a virus that will decimate humanity in 1997 and force the survivors to hide in the underground. But, pandemics aside, James Cole (Bruce Willis) slowly realizes that the future and the past might have a lot in common.
It doesn’t seem so at first. Gilliam’s future strikes us as gloomy and quickly deteriorating with its exposed wires, rubber clothes, and overbearing vigilance. Cole remarks frequently how much he misses music and the germ-free air of the late 20th century. The empty, snow-covered, and animal-dominated city above Cole’s underground shelter/prison facility stands in sharp contrast with the bustling streets of 90s Philadelphia. But these are all just cosmetics. Under the surface, the only difference between the past and the future are the filters through which they are shot: 2035 is green, while 1996 has a yellowish tint to it. Both are nauseating colors that highlight the disease-ridden atmosphere of the last days of humanity and the horrors of institutionalization.
The criminal and the insane - and the criminally insane - are at the center of 12 Monkeys, and Gilliam is quick to point out that the treatment dispensed to them is just as inhumane “now” as it is in a dystopian, imaginary future. Cole’s scenes inside the 1990's psychiatric hospital and the 2035’s prison are nearly indistinguishable from one another. The nurses are just as cruel as the guards, the drugs are just as potent, the people are just as hopeless, and the doctors of the past are shot in the same way as the panel of scientists that experiment on the inmates in the future prison facility. Add this to the overarching plot about a man from the future being taken for a lunatic for trying to warn others about a coming catastrophe, and you have a movie with a message.
It’s a message that looking through contemporary eyes, can sometimes slide into dangerous territory in its views about psychiatric treatment. Nevertheless, there is beauty to how insanity is treated in 12 Monkeys. From the discrete madness of Baron Munchhausen (John Neville) to the bizarreness of Tideland, Gilliam has always been fascinated by the tenuous line that separates sanity from insanity. And, in 12 Monkeys, he finds his sweet spot. From the madman Jeffrey’s (Brad Pitt) very concrete concerns about his father’s treatment of laboratory animals - akin to the treatment he receives at the asylum - to the dubious existence of the man calling Cole Bob from the outside of his prison cell, it is frequently impossible to separate reality from delusion. Insanity may look like a person believing that they come from the future, or it may arise from questioning the existence of that very future. The doomsday prophets on the streets may be deranged devourers of the Bible, or they may be time-travelers themselves.
Even the romance between Cole and Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) must walk this thin line between reason and madness. When she falls for him after being kidnaped and dragged through the streets of Philadelphia in search of the 12 Monkeys Army, how much of it is love, and how much is Stockholm Syndrome? As Lieutenant Halperin (Christopher Meloni) points out, there isn’t much sense in Kathryn siding with Cole. And, yet, how could she not fall for someone so honest, so dedicated, and with such a sense of childlike amazement at the world? When she finally believes him, is she coming to her senses or is she buying into his insanity? When she decides to flee with him, is it out of love or is it out of despair in face of the impending doom? Perhaps it's both. It is impossible to tell. Cole and Kathryn’s love story is just as logical as it is absurd.
In a movie in which 99% of the characters are constantly on the brink of madness, the exaggerated performances typical of Gilliam’s films fit like a glove. The entire cast talks and behaves as if they were in the middle of a mass hysteria. Even the allegedly sensible characters, the doctors and the scientists speak in a hurry, with no time or energy to absorb any information besides what’s already in their minds. It’s an acting style that serves to augment the sense of the absurdity of the world in which Cole lives in, whether this world is the derelict future or the doomed past.
However, not all performances are cut from the same cloth. As mental-patient-turned-animal-activist Jeffrey Goines, Brad Pitt frequently slips on his character's ticks. A character that should be perceived as threatening and a wild card can often seem just annoying. It’s perhaps just as well that Goines is not the actual villain of the movie, but a red herring, because that’s what his presence usually feels like: a distraction from what is really important.
Another aspect of 12 Monkeys that distracts more than adds to the film’s story and atmosphere are some of the camera angles. Director of photography Roger Pratt sure manages to make both the future and the past look grimy and nauseating through his use of filters and lighting, but he could’ve gone a little bit easier on the Dutch angles. The goal seems to be to make the audience feel as disoriented as the character’s, but this sensation is better achieved by Mike Audsley's fast and purposefully disjointed editing. The crooked cameras make the movie feel as if it’s trying too hard. They are uncomfortable, sure, but not for the right reasons.
The movie has other, smaller flaws. For instance, David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples’ screenplay can sometimes feel bloated. There’s no doubt that scenes like the one with the pimp at the hotel could have been easily cut with no prejudice to the plot or the overall vibe. Still, these issues are only to be expected of a movie as wild as 12 Monkeys. Gilliam’s work is far from being perfect, but it is without a doubt one of the most ambitious and bold sci-fi projects of its time. In the end, what sticks with you are not its imperfections, but the overwhelming sense that our world is a mad one and that it is only by a thin thread that we are hanging on to our sanity.
Rating: B+