Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece science-fiction novel is done marvellous justice by director George Roy Hill’s wildly complex, truly bizarre and poignant commentary on the absurdity of human existence.
In this postmodern Pilgrim’s Progress, Michael Sacks is Billy Pilgrim, a middle-aged optometrist who has become “unstuck in time” and is experiencing involuntary time travel.
Pilgrim constantly leaves the present – where he has a dull existence with his wife and child – to either return to the past, to the abattoir (Slaughterhouse Five) where he sheltered from the 1945 firebombing of Dresden as a POW, or flit to the future, where his mating with beautiful young porn star Montana Wildhack (Valerie Perrine) is viewed under a glass geodesic dome by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore who have abducted the couple to display in a zoo.
A wry, intelligent and thought-provoking parable with a haunting surreal quality.
Billy Pilgrim
Michael Sacks Paul Lazzaro
Ron Leibman Derby
Eugene Roche Valencia
Sharon Gans Montana Wildhack
Valerie Perrine Wild Bob Cody
Roberts Blossom Lionel Merble
Sorrell Booke Weary
Kevin Conway
