John Peterson lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter in Southern California. When he is visited by his aging father Willis from Los Angeles who is searching for a place to retire, their two very different worlds collide.
The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.
Set in an small English town in 1959, the story of a woman who decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.
Dowd, an IRA prisoner in the H-blocks, is gloomily facing his sentence, until he joins a comrade in a risky escape. Dowd begins a new life in New York, but he might as well be in prison again - until he strikes up a friendship with co-worker Tulio and gets to know his close group of Guatemalan exiles.
A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things. The Countess Sofya, wife and muse to Leo Tolstoy, uses every trick of seduction on her husband's loyal disciple, whom she believes was the person responsible for Tolstoy signing a new will that leaves his work and property to the Russian people.
A child during WWII, Hannibal Lecter sees his parents and younger sister brutally killed right before his eyes. His uncle later finds Hannibal in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France. The youngster flourishes and becomes the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But the demons of his tragic past torment and haunt him, unleashing a monster inside.
Cast: Gaspard Ulliel, Ivan Marevich, Aaron Thomas, Rhys Ifans Gong Li, Ingeborga Dapkunaite
Directed by Peter Webber
Although it's full of stylistic hallmarks we've come to expect from Gilliam — layered realities, overbearing technology, institutional paranoia and of course, quirky romance – it feels like a personal journey into his beliefs, as it stares into the divide between reason and faith.
Living in an Orwellian corporate world where "mancams" serve as the eyes of a shadowy figure known only as Management, Leth works on a solution to the strange theorem while living as a virtual cloistered monk in his home—the shattered interior of a fire-damaged chapel. His isolation and work are interrupted now and then by surprise visits from Bainsley, a flamboyantly lusty love interest who tempts him with "tantric biotelemetric interfacing" (virtual sex) and Bob. Latter is the rebellious whiz-kid teenage son of Management who, with a combination of insult-comedy and an evolving true friendship, spurs on Qohen’s efforts at solving the theorem. … Bob creates a virtual reality "inner-space" suit that will carry Qohen on an inward voyage, a close encounter with the hidden dimensions and truth of his own soul, wherein lie the answers both he and Management are seeking. The suit and supporting computer technology will perform an inventory of Qohen’s soul, either proving or disproving the Zero Theorem.
Like most life lessons, the answers to Qohen's problems are hidden in plain sight. But the fact that they're there at all marks the difference between a film with a nihilistic attitude about human existence, and one that believes in the idea that there are many reasons to live, both great and small. Like a great professor who makes complicated ideas easy to understand, and more importantly, fun to think about, Gilliam boils down basic questions about human existence to a series of weirdly relatable physical conflicts, which is why "The Zero Theorem" dances on the edge of nothingness, and manages to find something incredibly powerful to say.