Impression: Time Bandits
It’s been about ten years since I last saw Time Bandits in
its entirety. What always surprises me about the film is how delightfully strange
it continues to feel despite my familiarity with the movie.
Director Terry Gilliam offers up a fantastic adventure where
the effects are sparse but the visuals and backdrops reveal an imaginative and
wacky mind at work. It’s also those visuals that really make the movie work for
me, more so than the characters or the plot. I could say that the story follows
a troupe of little-sized time traveling thieves who use a map as a guide for
travel, but that’s just a concept to hang the look and feel for the film. I
could say that the film has themes that tackle the lack of parental affection
toward their children or the evils of the emerging technological revolution,
but those ideas are handled rather lightly to actually draw any focus towards
them. Instead we get a look at some reimagined history with a height obsessed Napoleon
(beautifully played by Ian Holm), a surprisingly genteel Robin Hood (John
Cleese), and a fatherly Greek king Agamemnon (Sean Connery). We are supposed to
see this through the eyes of a young boy named Kevin, who has an interest in
history, but this idea is also not explored, only just used as a foundation to
fully serve the look and feel of the film.
Later when the film diverges more into fantasy elements
spurred on by the introduction of Evil (gleefully acted by David Warner), the plot
becomes more focused. The movie also starts to play fast and loose with those
fantasy tropes as well. We have an ogre with a bad back and a giant who’s
unaware of his surroundings including carrying a sailing ship atop his head.
This all ultimately leads to the “Fortress of Ultimate Darkness” where “The Most
Fabulous Object” resides. This set design is probably the best work of the entire
film from its labyrinthine paths to the external model work of the “Fortress
of Ultimate Darkness”. Watching these set designs, I was, more than once,
reminded of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and found myself wondering how that
film series would have fared visually under Gilliam’s eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if the imagination
behind this creative work served as some inspiration for the J.RR Tolkien film adaptation.
While most of the movie’s individuals scenes are brought
together by this fantastical plot, the climax of the plot really serves in completing the story satisfactorily. I’ve never been a fan of deus ex machina, but along with “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, this
movie really handles its resolution very well. In fact Ralph Richardson’s
portrayal of the Supreme Being (a.k.a. God) is probably my favorite impression of
that divine being. In fact, this movie
probably boasts the best and most original presentations of Good and Evil ever seen
on film.
So while “Time Bandits” is, on some level, a series of skits (especially the scenes involving Michael Palin and
Shelly Duvall) woven together by the concept of time travel, the plot does
comes together at the end with a somewhat satisfying conclusion. I say ‘somewhat’
because at the very end of the film, a catastrophe does occur for the main
character that is left unresolved and can be perceived as something of a down
note. After seeing that ending numerous times (and coming to terms with it), I
think that the scene conveys the randomness of life and cements the entire tone of the film. The fact that while there is randomness in the world and that good
and evil do co-exist, there is an underlying order. It’s just not for us
to figure out. “Time Bandits” is a fun movie to watch and experience
imagination at play here both serious and foolish. It’s a movie which proves
that the whole is greater than the individual parts.
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