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

Terry Gilliam's vastly underrated masterpiece

This is a masterpiece of a movie, one that a director can only accomplish once in a lifetime, and has to be watched without distraction. For young viewers who got used to today's nausea inducing camera shots and ultra quick half second edits, the pacing could come off as ponderous at first. One one level, it's a beautiful and even by today's computerized standards awesome cinematic masterpiece, one that's done without any 3D graphics at all, and even trying to imagine some of the scenes being constructed without the help of any computer graphics is simply staggering. On the other, it's a razor edged satire targeted at bureocracy and pettiness in our society. It's so obvious that this movie has been lovingly put together bit by bit with incredible attention to detail by whomever took part in it, from the costume designers to background painters, and only a director like Terry Gilliam could bring it all together without going insane with all that detail. Music is top notch, too. August 17, 2008

Weird, wacky, wonderful

There aren't too many movies like "Brazil" around. It's been assigned to the category "steampunk" but I'm not sure that is correct- it has some cyberpunk attributes as well. Anyway, the labels aren't too important. What matters is the clever 3-way mix of human story, technology fantasy/satire, and sharp cynicism about the future of society.

Imagine a version of "1984" where everything is pretty much governed by the "information Ministry." But rather than being a horrifyingly efficient organ of the State, it is more of a bureaucratic nightmare with masses of "organization men" shuffling huge amounts of paper and aided - or hindered - by a computer technology that uses old Remington typewriter keyboards and small screens that have a magnifying lens in front of them! Televisions are the old 1950's style rounded-edge screens. HVAC systems are a jumble of huge hoses that breathe stertorously as they supply the air. A truck is a large cumbersome vehicle with far too many bits and pieces all over it, huge tires, and a general "Mad Max" look.

The film tracks the path of a guileless minor cog in this over-organized but inefficient society. He doesn't want to participate in any of the internal status struggles, just to stay where he is, doing meaningless work and fantasizing/dreaming of a life as a winged superhero soaring through the clouds to meet a beautiful woman...and great is his amazement when in real life he sees the same enchanting face! His life is never the same. I won't spoil the plot except that you can take the ending as either sad or happy, in spite of tragedy along the way. The dysfunctional social power structure has teeth that can bite and the SWAT types and their weapons are real enough.

Some of the vignettes are very much from the UK background - the two bloody-minded HVAC repairmen are a dig at the British trade unions, many of which are famous for their intransigence and turf jealousy.

The movie makes wonderful points about our ability for denial, as when a terrorist bomb blast shatters part of a fancy restaurant and the band plays on while the staff quickly erect ornamental screens to prevent the unharmed diners from seeing the carnage, and continue to serve.

Lastly, I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned the passing reference to Grace Hopper and the "bug" theory...An old piece of computer lore is that a program error on a very early computing machine was due to an insect trapped in a relay and Admiral Hopper then coined the term "bug" for program errors. This is likely incorrect, but it was amusing to see a huge mistaken-identity element of the plot of "Brazil" triggered by a bug falling into a clunky typewriter-like printer and causing a person's name to be printed incorrectly.

Well worth a viewing! August 9, 2008

A Remarkable Achievement

What can I possibly say about this movie that hasn't already been said? I'm just sitting here, a day later, still blown away.

Made in 1985, its predictions of a techno-future are eerily prescient while at the same time looking way cooler. Or more probably filming was happening in 1984, since it has shades of that fine novel. A hint of Clockwork Orange...

And really, comparing it to anything else is just wrong.

We have the menacing future, yet we have some powerfully conceived and brilliantly acted characters, in a plot that's fast and fascinating, along with what the cover rightfully calls biting humor. I was constantly laughing in the most inappropriate places, precisely as intended.

I don't give many five-star reviews. That means I'm keeping the movie and watching it again (and again). In this case, at the end of its 2 hours and 23 minutes, I really wanted to play it again immediately.

Oh yeah, and top notch special effects that'll blow you away, and the kind of sets I really wish I could've guarded back in my security guard days.

But I digress. Get this movie. It'll definitely live up to your expectations, and then some.
July 29, 2008

1984 1/2

Terry Gilliam says that the working title for what became "Brazil" was "1984 1/2," a funny reference to the fact that the film was inspired by Orwell's 1984. Although Gilliam claims that he never actually read the novel, it's hard to take him seriously. "Brazil" has the same drab, grimy, proletarian feel that the novel exudes; everyday life is relentlessly monitored by shadowy powers-that-be (the visual metaphor of the ever-present ductwork gestures at this); terrorism is a fact of life; everyone is considered a potential enemy of the state; and the protagonist Sam Lowry, like his Orwellian counterpart Winston Smith, initially accepts the social order, then rebels against it because he's fallen in love, and finally is defeated by it.

On one level, then, there's nothing surprising about the overall dystopian structure that Gilliam creates. It's already all in Orwell. Moreover, like Orwell's 1984, the film is overlong and the plot tends to shred in places.

What makes this film well worth seeing, however, is in part what makes Orwell's novel worth reading: the characters. Gilliam presents us with some unforgettable ones, and the actors who bring them to life for the most part do a wonderful job. For my money, Ian Holms tops the list as the nervous-nelly bureaucrat Mr. Kurtzmann (I wonder if his name is an allusion to Joseph Conrad's Kurtz?). Bob Hoskins is also excellent as Spoor, the hilarious and horrible engineer, and Michael Palin puts in an admirable performance as the rather matter-of-fact torturer Jack Lint. Ian Richardson and Jim Broadbent do their minor roles proud. Robert de Niro, on the other hand, is wooden as the terrorist Tuttle (he doesn't really come into his own as a comedic actor until "Meet the Parents"), and Kim Greist as Jill Layton is horrible. Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry has his good moments, but his performance, probably because the script begins to unravel toward the end of the film, becomes predictable.

The other thing that makes the film worth watching is its sheer visual beauty. Gilliam creates sets that lodge in one's memory, sometimes because they're so vividly larger than life (Sam's duels with the mechanical samurai warrior), sometimes because they so harmoniously marry bright colors with dystopian squalor and drabness (the restaurant scene, for example, or the opening scene in the Buttle household).

Definitely a film worth watching. Not a great film, but a good one. three and one-half stars. June 29, 2008

"1984" Meets "Brave New World"

Brazil is not a crowd-pleaser to rent on video night with your friends. It is not a date movie, an action flick to watch with the boys, or any other genre of film you'll see multiple copies of at the local Blockbuster.

So, what is it? Brazil is vision of a chilling future, and many compare it with Orwell's classic "1984". Jackbooted security police, institutionalized systematic torture, and other grim motives appear throughout the story, so this is understandable. However, instead of sheer Orwellian oppression, Writer/Director Terry Gilliam has mixed in Huxleyan elements reminiscent of "Brave New World". Worker drones appear busy when the boss is watching but spend the rest of their time glued to old Western TV reruns on their computer screens. Most characters appear content to live within the system and accept their lot in life. They can shop and dine to their hearts' content (as long as they order by the numbers on the menus and do as they are told).

Gilliam introduces a character who is not satisfied with the status quo. He skewers bureaucratic inefficiency and irrationality, sending his lost hero through a maze of jobs and situations that increase his desperation to find love and meaning in life. The viewer is left to judge whether it would have been better for him to have stayed as he was instead of giving way to his romantic dreams.

My wife, who usually doesn't like my DVD choices (e.g. Being There), sat with me through the whole movie and actually enjoyed it. That makes me think "Brazil" isn't an inaccessible, artsy film but simply an odd one with dark humor. I consider it a classic and a great addition to my DVD collection. Criterion did an excellent job in both video and audio quality (at least as far as I can tell on my 720p plasma and basic Onkyo home theater system). June 10, 2008

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