Brazil (1985)

If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant.

The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. Although the DVD (at a fraction of the price) doesn't include that set's many extras, it's still a bargain. --Jim Emerson Amazon.com essential video

3 stars out 4

The Bottom Line:

Brazil is a flawed masterpiece of a film; though it has many problems, most specifically Kim Griest's uneven performance as the inconsistently-written Jill, Brazil is an audacious movie that few will regret watching. December 21, 2008

DeNiro in an Art Film!

Where else could you see Robert De-Niro as a revolutionary/heating repair technician in a Monty-Python member's masterwork. The theme is 1984 meets The Wall meets Doctor Who meets the muppets, and it is well worth the watch. December 16, 2008

Interesting, but little more

I typically like the more abstract and intellectually masturbatory films of this nature and I'm rather fond of dark satire so this should be a huge winner for me. I'm afraid it wasn't.

Certainly there were some very cool elements technologically, I rather enjoyed the somewhat steampunk design of what the world might look like now if everything had gone a different direction.

That's really where my enjoyment ended, I think the narrative was too scattered and I never felt emotionally invested in the characters. As a story had interesting concepts but I think they were all done better and more appropriately a work like 1984 and the characters actions and emotions were so absurd that I wasn't sure I ever believed they were real.

Our poor star of the movie becomes obsessed with a women in his very strange dream but who he never appears to have any real relationship and he sacrifices seemingly everything to find her and protect her from a threat that seemed mostly within his mind. The women, initially rejecting him in question of his sanity suddenly has a change of heart and falls for him, or seems to as we fall further into the illusions and insanity of our hero's mind.

In the end I feel like this film is worth watching in the interest of film history and the art design is very nice but the movie is too absurd when it isn't plain boring and won't sit very high on my list of great movies. December 5, 2008

If Orwell had a sense of humour

Terry Gilliam's unique satire is as funny as it is absurd and dark. With the character of Sam Lowry he created the perfect anti-hero, not in the least thanks to the brilliant performance by Jonathan Pryce.

Equally well known is the conflict that Gilliam had to enter into to get his movie released as he wanted it, because the studio heads suddenly got not only cold feet but also the crazy notion to have a happy ending and drastically make cuts in the movie to make it shorter. Gilliam took the right approach, organized a film critics screening who raved about it and thus embarrassed the studio execs. The result was two versions of the movie, the studio version without dream sequences but with happy ending to be shown in the US and a European version of the movie Gilliam had actually made.

It's true Gilliam's original ending won't let leave the cinema cheerful, but it's so strong and really the logical consequence of what preceded it, that changing it is an indefensible assault on the movie, that would severely immaculate it.

The title of the movie has little to do with the country, but refers to the song of that name, which can be heard every time Sam Lowry has one of his day dreams in which he is a super hero fighting a monstrous giant opponent, naturally to save a damsel in distress. He is utterly surprised when he meets this 'woman of his dreams' in real life, even if she has shorter and doesn't exactly fall for him right away. This is not helped by the circumstances of their meeting through his work as a civil servant representing a monstrous state machinery, that would even give Kafka nightmares, allowing him by the stroke of a pen or, as in this case, the collision of a bug with a typewriter, to destroy lives, in this particular case the life of the woman's neighbor named Buttle, who unfortunately by a spelling mistake on a form, caused by aforementioned bug, is arrested and subsequently executed.

Not everyone in the Orwellian society is as happy with the status quo and so there is an underground resistance, i.e. a group of terrorists, which is responsible for a series of bombings. Sam wants to know all about 'his' dream woman, who turns out to be called Jill Layton, but unfortunately his current level of information access it too low so a promotion is unavoidable to satisfy his hunger. Fortunately his mother, who is in an exceedingly more extreme state of plastic surgery, has the right connections to get him the promotion he needs.

When he can get to the information it turns out that Jill is a suspected member of the resistance. Sam vows to do all he can to save her and that way more or less become the hero he up to that point could only be in his dreams.

The story seems pretty straightforward, but Gilliam describes it all with very bizarre and satirical scenes, showcasing his Python background, but they always also have a very dark and serious side to them. The movie is visually overwhelming and its cast excellent, with a nice cameo by de Niro as a resistance fighter who challenges the state mainly by creative plumbing activities and who turns out to have been the man Tuttle the authorities were looking for when they arrested and killed Jill's neighbor.

The scenes at Lowry's place of work are hilarious and more particularly Python front man Michael Palin as Lowry's blood spattered friend is wonderful, both very funny and scary at the same time.

There are just too many details to mention.

Luckily Criterion made the ultimate release of this movie with both versions and a quite impressive collection of extras including a fascinating documentary of the creative history of this unique film.
November 12, 2008

Not Into It...

I saw most of this movie years ago, and I just tried to watch it entire to see the first part I missed. Quit half-way through.

This movie has fantastic art direction, and is filled with small bits of good comedy, but it basically has one or two jokes told over and over again: jibes at the petty status-seeking of bureacratic society; satire of technological utopianism, as shown by the constantly screwing up duct systems, robots, anachronistic typing machines, etc.

The story is a simple and tiresome one about a poor guy who dreams of a girl, both from the opposite sides of the bureacratic tracks, etc...The "romantic" aspect is hackneyed, and of course, it's way too long.

Better to read 1984, Zamayatin's We, Brave New World than to watch this film. They're more clever, more disturbing, and more funny. November 7, 2008

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