We’re in this weird state of suspense where the characters can’t articulate what they’re doing or their motives. In the introduction to the film, Hawke talks about his character and why he chose the project, and he says he plays a military man who you’re not sure is good or bad. He narrates the scene saying, “Jesus was just another soldier, another war casualty…but on whose side?” In the beginning, JJ can be seen filming parts of the Vatican. This film exists in the in-between, the middle ground. With non-existent context, it’s hard to see why any of these scenes are important and why JJ’s involvement either helps or hinders them. Besides the doctor in the room and another woman holding a gun as they’re on the bed, the actual sex looks less forced and more like a consenual, sensual encounter as they kiss and she helps him take off parts of his uniform. He also participates in the filming of a sexual assault after he’s kidnapped by Russians after the Vatican goes up in flames and is made to have sex with a woman to impregnate her. He films a waterboarding where a man gets water dumped onto a black cloth held tight to his face. JJ is the throughline, the anchor in the ambiguous storm, as he films various events of the night. If it has to be in our daily viewings, slightly ruining the fantasies on our screens, better it be a side character than a main player.
The two appear to be on opposite sides, but who’s to say what the sides are? On top of it all, the pandemic plays its own small part through the scenes of hand sanitizing, mask-wearing, and talks of being “negative.” This was my first film where the pandemic makes its presence known, and I didn’t hate it. The only thing that is clear is that he’s searching for his brother, Justin – the “revolutionary,” also played by Hawke – who was put in jail.
The objectives of the main character JJ (Ethan Hawke), a soldier in Rome who works to chronicle events for the military, are foggy, as are some of the scenes themselves, as everything is filmed under the cover of night.Īnd even as the Vatican disappears amidst multiple fiery explosions, it’s hard to know what part he played in the deed, besides its filming. Zeros and Ones directed by Abel Ferrara, is chock-full of military, political, religious, and even familial musings that still fail to mount a cohesive and impactful story.