BrazilIs the daily grind getting you down? Well now, you can take a vacation without having to go anywhere...you just need to leave your sanity behind. Welcome to the future, a bureaucratic dystopia envisioned by Terry Gilliam in the form of Brazil, where everything is automated, and everything operates perfectly, provided you have the right forms with the right stamps, filed in triplicate. In other words, nothing actually works and the system is prone to mistakes, a realization which low-level Department of Records employee, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) becomes aware of as he starts to emerge from his waking nightmare as just another cog in the machine.
|
|
Brazil opens with a scene which sets forth the sequence of events that alter Sam's life forever, quite inadvertently due to a typographical error, incriminating an Archibald Buttle for a crime he did not commit. As this commences, the Deputy Minister of Information, Mr. Helpmann (Peter Vaughan), is giving an interview on a talk show. Questions about the massive amounts of spending the Ministry of Information utilizes in their acquisition of information and overall invasive spying are answered in the standard fashion of politicians: to dodge the questions and reply with absurd analogies relating their spying and totalitarian authority with sports and team effort. Signs around the office of Sam's boss, Mr. Kurtzmann (Ian Holm) read with such inspiring quotes as "suspicion breeds confidence"; and this propaganda is far from the exception. Information and invasive snooping into personal privacy has become the mantra in this world--"somewhere in the 20th Century"--as has the idea that the invasive acquisition of information is important for civil defense and has become accepted as the norm; sound familiar? Wryly cynical of government intrusion and eerily prescient of practices in the 21st century, Brazil is an indictment of a society obsessed with the illusion of security and safety that comes with a reliance on officiousness and bureaucracy. But up in the clouds are our dreams, where Sam's mind goes in-between the humdrum moments of his tedious days. He doesn't relish turning in his gray suit for a slightly more fashionable gray suit by accepting a promotion with the prestigious Information Retrieval department, where his successful (if patronizing) friend Jack Lint (Michael Palin) works. Sam dreams heroic dreams, flying high above the clouds in a suit of gleaming armor, wings like Icarus, always in pursuit of his tantalizing muse. When he attempts to deliver an unprecedented refund check to Mrs. Buttle--on account of the accidental "exile" or "deactivation" (read: death) of her husband--Sam catches sight of a woman he learns is named Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who also plays the literal woman of his dreams. But before Sam can discover her identity, he learns he requires higher security clearance, and acquiesces to the pressures of his mother, Mrs. Ida Lowry (Katherine Helmond), to take the promotion, ironically following his dreams by taking the job he hates.
Terry Gilliam's reputation from the comedic works of Monty Python shows in all his works; but while Brazil has several moments of smirking humor, it is a chilling tale of how easily it is to slip into a state of mechanical indifference as a part of a society so closely regimented that individuality is not a blessing but a curse. Silly moments abound to underscore the absurdity of this alternate reality--like the scoops of slop at the restaurant, ordered by number with ridiculous placards placed on the plate to indicate what the food is supposed to be, and more. But it makes one wonder if this seems absurd to us, how crazy must some of the conventions we have come to accept in our society look to our predecessors. Just as cell phones seem to have dominated our society, there is a pervasiveness of "ducts" which runs through the system of apartments and offices in the over-industrialized world of Brazil, which even turns out to be a battleground of sorts when Sam's air conditioning goes on the fritz, and he is forced to accept the services of a freelance heating technician named Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (Robert De Niro)...not to be confused with the late Archibald Buttle, at least not any more. Harry appears like a secret agent, and does the impossible--he fixes Sam's air conditioning without the paperwork...he just does it, because as he claims, "we're all in this together". He doesn't even charge Sam to help a fellow out...what madness! No wonder Harry's a criminal; can you imagine what kind of society we would live in if we went around helping one another out without compensation? Certainly one which the authoritarian regime determined to distract us from thinking about such radical concepts wouldn't endorse; we're still talking about Brazil, right? And Harry whistles a little tune which turns out to be the titular song, "Brazil", and the song stays with Sam, just as it no doubt would get stuck in anyone's head after seeing this picture--that's a compliment. In a way, the song begins to work its magic on Sam, slowly unraveling his ordered role in this emotionally sterile world, and opens him up to the crazy idea of tracking down Jill solely because she appeared in his dreams. Sam goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, and gets caught up in a spiral of conspiracy, one which appears to be fabricated by the Ministry as a way to spin their error--which resulted in Buttle's death--rather than admit the system is faulty in addition to being soulless. Jill is not just the woman of Sam's dreams because she is pretty, but because she is also a rebellious spirit which promotes his desire to break free from the chains of his bondage. When I first saw Brazil, I felt that Sam's transition from mild-mannered clerk into raving lunatic was a sudden one when he first "rescues" Jill from the clutches of Information Retrieval. But watching it again, there is a gradual simmering of the inner fire within Sam, and it begins to boil over when he starts to believe that there is a chance that he can escape--not just from his menial existence, but from the rigid laws of reality. There is a telling shot about the state of the world in Brazil as Sam and Jill are returning to the city in her flatbed truck, ready to deliver a prefab living unit. The walls surrounding the road are plastered with bright and beaming advertisements, but the world outside of them--concealed from their view, but not from our vantage point--is a desiccated wasteland. Like Sam's mother's skin treatments at the hands of an opportunistic plastic surgeon (Jim Broadbent), this shows that no matter how much concealer you put on, beauty is only skin deep, and the corruption beneath cannot be excised as a result.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever, cynical, and wholly dystopian view of a future where we are all under the thumb of a totalitarian government more concerned with licences and regulations than the spirit of the law, like something out of Kafka. (This is still a science fiction movie, right? Will you sleep easier if I tell you, "yes"?)
Terry Gilliam's reputation from the comedic works of Monty Python shows in all his works; but while Brazil has several moments of smirking humor, it is a chilling tale of how easily it is to slip into a state of mechanical indifference as a part of a society so closely regimented that individuality is not a blessing but a curse. Silly moments abound to underscore the absurdity of this alternate reality--like the scoops of slop at the restaurant, ordered by number with ridiculous placards placed on the plate to indicate what the food is supposed to be, and more. But it makes one wonder if this seems absurd to us, how crazy must some of the conventions we have come to accept in our society look to our predecessors. Just as cell phones seem to have dominated our society, there is a pervasiveness of "ducts" which runs through the system of apartments and offices in the over-industrialized world of Brazil, which even turns out to be a battleground of sorts when Sam's air conditioning goes on the fritz, and he is forced to accept the services of a freelance heating technician named Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (Robert De Niro)...not to be confused with the late Archibald Buttle, at least not any more. Harry appears like a secret agent, and does the impossible--he fixes Sam's air conditioning without the paperwork...he just does it, because as he claims, "we're all in this together". He doesn't even charge Sam to help a fellow out...what madness! No wonder Harry's a criminal; can you imagine what kind of society we would live in if we went around helping one another out without compensation? Certainly one which the authoritarian regime determined to distract us from thinking about such radical concepts wouldn't endorse; we're still talking about Brazil, right? And Harry whistles a little tune which turns out to be the titular song, "Brazil", and the song stays with Sam, just as it no doubt would get stuck in anyone's head after seeing this picture--that's a compliment. In a way, the song begins to work its magic on Sam, slowly unraveling his ordered role in this emotionally sterile world, and opens him up to the crazy idea of tracking down Jill solely because she appeared in his dreams. Sam goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, and gets caught up in a spiral of conspiracy, one which appears to be fabricated by the Ministry as a way to spin their error--which resulted in Buttle's death--rather than admit the system is faulty in addition to being soulless. Jill is not just the woman of Sam's dreams because she is pretty, but because she is also a rebellious spirit which promotes his desire to break free from the chains of his bondage. When I first saw Brazil, I felt that Sam's transition from mild-mannered clerk into raving lunatic was a sudden one when he first "rescues" Jill from the clutches of Information Retrieval. But watching it again, there is a gradual simmering of the inner fire within Sam, and it begins to boil over when he starts to believe that there is a chance that he can escape--not just from his menial existence, but from the rigid laws of reality. There is a telling shot about the state of the world in Brazil as Sam and Jill are returning to the city in her flatbed truck, ready to deliver a prefab living unit. The walls surrounding the road are plastered with bright and beaming advertisements, but the world outside of them--concealed from their view, but not from our vantage point--is a desiccated wasteland. Like Sam's mother's skin treatments at the hands of an opportunistic plastic surgeon (Jim Broadbent), this shows that no matter how much concealer you put on, beauty is only skin deep, and the corruption beneath cannot be excised as a result.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever, cynical, and wholly dystopian view of a future where we are all under the thumb of a totalitarian government more concerned with licences and regulations than the spirit of the law, like something out of Kafka. (This is still a science fiction movie, right? Will you sleep easier if I tell you, "yes"?)