This is a genuinely brilliant film. I hadn’t
seen Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits in years, and I don’t know that I
would have for many more if I hadn’t seen the new documentary Lost in La
Mancha, a chronicle of his failed attempt to shoot The Man Who Killed Don
Quixote.
Time Bandits came out in 1981, predating E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
by a year -- and featured an identical child protagonist who stays awake late at
night with a flashlight. That’s about all they have in common. In Steven
Spielberg’s classic the adults were grown up children that still dreamt. In
Terry Gilliam’s universe the adults are materialistic consumers whose malaise
is the root of all evil.
The sheer scope of Time Bandits is staggering. I’m not sure that there
have been any fantasies this ambitious until recently with The Lord of the
Rings series. True, the effects are quaint compared to Peter Jackon’s
epics, but I can’t quite think of any other films that have jumped from
Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood (John Cleese), to the final night on the Titanic
(Shelley Duvall and Michael Palin), to a fairy tale world of ogres and giants
(Katherine Helmond), to ancient Greece and Agamemnon (Sean Connery), to the
warfront with Napoleon (Ian Holm), and a final confrontation involving Evil
(David Warner) and the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson).
Monty Python aside, this was Terry Gilliam’s first real success as a
solo feature director. It displays many of his subsequent anti-consumer themes,
though he hadn’t fully formulated his wide-angle visual approach yet. Sure,
the wide-angles are on display here -- he just didn’t figure out what to do
with them until Brazil.
Speaking of Brazil, Time Bandits was conceived during a period
where Gilliam was failing to get that troubled classic off the ground. It was
the financial success of this that got him the green light for that. His career
has been a series of ups and downs ever since. Brazil’s battles are
legend, as was the disastrous production of The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen. He rebounded with two commercial successes in the ‘90s, The
Fisher King and 12 Monkeys, but no matter how good they were, they
were studio pictures on which he was a hired director. Every time he attempts a
dream project it starts raining.
After watching Time Bandits again, I really want to promote it. It’s
that impressive. It’s not an American children’s film. It was shot in
Britain and features a mostly British cast. There’s nothing cute or feel-good
about it. Like pre-Disney Grimm Brothers tales it’s dark and scary. It
probably couldn’t get financed in today’s climate and, in fact, Gilliam had
to fight to keep his “orphan” ending in 1981.
The Criterion Collection DVD isn’t really worth the money -- the print was
made from the original 35mm interpositive, but it’s filled with grain and age
artifacts. Also, it’s lacking in extra features, though what’s here is good:
commentary by Gilliam, Cleese and Palin, among others, and probably the best
theatrical trailer since A Clockwork Orange, in full Monty Python
tilt.
Beware the steep $39 price you’ll probably have to pay, give or take. The
movie is, however, worth seeing. It’s especially special looking back on it
some twenty years later. Time Bandits is a modern classic that deserves
renewed public interest. -Jamie Stuart
-Copyright 2003 by Jamie Stuart