From start to finish this is a Gilliam film...one might call it Brazil 2, since it starts and finishes in a similar fashion.
It's all about the meaning of life, without referring to the old Monty Python film. But it begins in a rather chaotic fashion with the protagonist Christoph Waltz enslaved in an IT job he hates, yet has no idea of how to change his life. All he can think of is he's dying, even though he really isn't.
It's left to a corporate call girl to waken him to fun and love. But, he eventually rejects her, feeling betrayed...all the while he's waiting for his reward in this life or the next in the form of a phone call.
And here is the interesting aspect. Matt Damon, as the corporate supremo, lays it out to Waltz in a somewhat anti Christian rant about people wasting their lives on the assumption that this life is a meaningless phase when the next life is where it's at. He castigates Waltz for this view, telling him he should be doing something with his life here and now instead of waiting for a 'call.' This is Jewish philosophy.
I don't think Gilliam is Jewish...and he appeared to be knocking religion in general...but Jews believe God commanded them to make the most of this life and protect the earth for the here and now. The idea of heaven in Judaism is far more metaphysical and less defined than those perceptions of an afterlife in Christianity and Islam.
It's all about the meaning of life, without referring to the old Monty Python film. But it begins in a rather chaotic fashion with the protagonist Christoph Waltz enslaved in an IT job he hates, yet has no idea of how to change his life. All he can think of is he's dying, even though he really isn't.
It's left to a corporate call girl to waken him to fun and love. But, he eventually rejects her, feeling betrayed...all the while he's waiting for his reward in this life or the next in the form of a phone call.
And here is the interesting aspect. Matt Damon, as the corporate supremo, lays it out to Waltz in a somewhat anti Christian rant about people wasting their lives on the assumption that this life is a meaningless phase when the next life is where it's at. He castigates Waltz for this view, telling him he should be doing something with his life here and now instead of waiting for a 'call.' This is Jewish philosophy.
I don't think Gilliam is Jewish...and he appeared to be knocking religion in general...but Jews believe God commanded them to make the most of this life and protect the earth for the here and now. The idea of heaven in Judaism is far more metaphysical and less defined than those perceptions of an afterlife in Christianity and Islam.