Brazil

Rating:
Summary: We're all in it together, kid...
Review: "Brazil" is a masterpiece, and more relevant today than it was in 1985. Terry Gilliam has an inclination to indulge the perverse and carnivalesque in his films, but here it works brilliantly as a counterpoint to an excellent script which does not spell out every detail about the strange, out-of-time society we're witnessing; its tone fluctuates wildly, from slapstick to ominous to and back, but that's really just a mildly diverting side-effect of the multidimensional work of art that it is, one of the films for our troubled times.

An enormous bureaucratic government has so become enmeshed with private corporations as to be one. The government's war on terror and surveillance of its citizens sucks in seven percent of the gross national product. Every day seems to be Christmas Day (to keep the economy going?). Plastic surgery and age-reduction techniques are rampant (for the elite). Every interior space is marred by ugly heating/air conditioning ducts, every exterior straight out of Albert Speer's sketchbook. The Ministry of Information routinely kidnaps people, interrogates them, then charges their bank accounts for helping assist the government in their war on terror. Stuck in here as a contented cog in the machine is Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a clerk whose high-society mother pushes him towards a career he'd rather not take on, preferring his world of boredom and fantasizing about his dream woman. Central Services, which maintains the infrastructure of everything, is inept and understaffed and "don't take kindly to sabotage" when a do-good heating repairman named Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) works alone at night intercepting people's calls for help. When Sam's heating breaks, Tuttle enters his apartment and convinces Sam to let him fix it. Several days earlier, a dead insect fell into a Ministry of Information computer and caused a typographical error which resulted in the imprisonment and death of an innocent man, Archibald Buttle, instead of the Archibald Tuttle they were seeking, who is a terrorist charged with "freelance subversion." Sam asks him, are you...? Tuttle says, "My good friends call me Harry." He explains why he roams the night: He can't stand the paperwork.
The next day, Sam takes initiative over his meek boss and gives Mrs. Buttle her refund check for her husband's interrogation/torture/murder and there, sees the woman he has been fantasizing about. And there is his move towards redemption, and his downfall. Brazil has a brilliant, mind-bending conclusion which throws everything before it as ambiguous and which is a clear parallel to Orwell's "1984" which it has been claimed it is very loosely based upon.

Rating:
Summary: A Surrealistic Masterpiece
Review: "Brazil" isn't one of those movies that you understand in one viewing. It isn't simple and dumbed down so that you see it once, go "I understand!" and forget about it. Terry Gilliam has crafted a wonderfully intricate and surreal film that is a joy to see every time you watch it. As stated before, you have to pay very close attention to this, or else you'll miss a very important part. You don't blank out and jus watch the pretty moving pictures (although they are incredablly stunning, especially Sam's dreams). The part that most threw people off was the end, and already ruined by most reviewers, where *spoiler* Sam escapes the Torture Chamber through his fantasy. In other words, he escapes by going insane. "Brazil" can be interpeted in many ways. I think it could be intepeted as Sam Lowery's rise and fall (though Gilliam has said "Brazil" was more about the beurocratic goverment where you sacrifice personal individuality for security and how it goes about squashing Sam's quest for his freedom). Sam loses his innocence when he transferrs to Information Retrieval and recklessly goes about finding his dream girl. His recklessness, however, shows how free he is, not caring about consequences. Anyway, "Brazil" is a beautiful, surreal, and certaintly complex film.

Rating:
Summary: Ordem E Progresso Destrua: Gilliam's Nightmarish "Brazil"
Review: 'Brazil entertains the heart the softly stands beneath an amber moon. Brazil is the kiss of two loves, clung together. And when love is miles away, with a million things to say, recalling the thrills shared under twilit skies, Brazil is the place it returns to.'

With any luck, the optimism of these thoughts will get you through the coming nights. For if Terry Gilliam's movie "Brazil" is at all prophetic, your days will ultimately destroy you.

Owing obvious influence to George Orwell's "1984", "Brazil" is set in a dystopian society where subtle propaganda aims to control your mind ("Don't suspect a friend, report him" and "Loose Talk Is Noose Talk" being my favourite examples of the ever-present signage that marks the landscape), government workers have the ability to destroy your life with the touch of a button or the pressing of a rubber stamp, and a mighty brouhaha between the oppressors and the oppressed -- characterized by ever more frequent terrorist bombings -- is brewing. It's a world where an innocuous act, such as a bug falling into a teletype machine, can cost a man his life. Which is exactly what happens.

Despite what appears to be a violent regression in the advancement of technology, characterized by manual typewriters attached to monochromatic monitors that serve as personal computers, "Brazil" is probably the most realistic dystopian vision I can think of. It lays out a possible future path that will not surprise anyone if it comes true. If it hasn't already. It's a hermetically sealed society where personal information is our most precious and destructive commodity, plastic surgeons promise happiness and deliver startling (in every sense of the word) results, and bureaucracy has run amok to the nth degree.

This last point gives the film some of its most uncomfortable laughs. One early scene has a black-coated bureaucrat, having just legally abducted a woman's husband, offering her a "receipt for your husband", and then cheerily adding, "and this is my receipt for your receipt." At one point Sam Lowry, our most unlikely protagonist who's on his toes as ever, actually thwarts a malicious attempt to sabotage his air-conditioning... by demanding the appropriate form. The boys from Central Servicing, obviously taught well, have no choice but to back off.

Terry Gilliam, director of such disturbing fare as "The Fisher King", "Time Bandits", and "Twelve Monkeys", once again plies the trades he learned during his time in Monty Python: the use of humour to point out society's ills (despite the bleak message, "Brazil" is nothing if not a mercilessly funny film), and a unique eye for sharp and evocative visuals. The landscape he's created appears to be dominated by a duct motif. The curious little pipes muss up the corner of every room, from floor to ceiling, creating a benign yet oppressive presence. On the one hand, information and service is always at your fingertips; on the other hand, you're always at *their* fingertips. Shudder.

The film opens with a bird's-eye-view trip through some clouds. The song "Brazil", after which the film is intriguingly named (and whose lyrics I liberally pilfered to start my review), soars over the soundtrack. It's the first appearance for a theme that's omnipresent throughout the film (It turns up in various guises; at one point Sam even whimsically whistles it). It's like Big Brother, only this time instead of him watching you, you're listening to it. In lieu of opening credits we instead get a couple of quick title cards marking time and location. They reminded me of the similar opening moments of Hitchcock's "Psycho", enamored with specificity ("8:49am"), but with the added attraction of being paradoxically unspecific ("Somewhere in the 20th century"). What follows is a film of harrowing emotion and terrifying ideas.

Jonathan Pryce, as Sam Lowry, is a perfect guide for the audience to follow through this strange world. He begins the film as a cool customer; watch him ably assist his nervous manager, Mr. Kurtzmann (a delicious Ian Holm), in solving small crisis after small crisis with but a few taps at the computer terminal. He's also a dreamer. His multiple forays into a fantasy world where he's a winged warrior battling 20-foot tall samurais allows the film to flesh out the subtext. Sam is an idealist, ill suited to a world hell bent on destroying his dreams. So as he becomes entangled in the machinations of the plot, Pryce gets more and more frantic. In what's essentially a button-down bureaucrat of a role, Pryce shows that he's wildly limber. His physical comedy, which is helped out by his buggy eyeballs and lanky limbs, amounts for much of the comedy in the role.

Pryce is surrounded by a veritable who's who of British character actors. Besides the aforementioned Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, and Jim Broadbent all turn up in small but effective roles. Gilliam even allows a couple of Americans to join in on the fun. Katherine Helmond, as Sam's surgery obsessed mother, and Robert DeNiro, as a rogue handyman, appear to be having heaps of fun with their characters. Kim Greist, as Jill, the fantasy object of Sam's desire, is less successful. She's supposed to be the worthy Julia to Sam's Winston Smith, but Greist is stiff, unappealing, and unattractive.

The film's plot, often confusing, is most likely just a clothesline off of which Gilliam and Co. can hang big ideas. And they do, with flair and humour intact. Much credit should be given to screenwriters Gilliam, Charles McKeown, who also plays Sam's office mate Harvey Lime, and Tony award winning playwright Tom Stoppard (yay Tom!).

"Brazil" is just the latest in a long line of films I've seen recently that I can classify as 'revisionist'. Not that the film itself makes new claims on old history. It's more a case of me seeing a film for a second time, a film I detested after the first pass, with new eyes. And loving it dearly.

Rating:
Summary: A not very human tragedy
Review: 'Brazil' is, by turns, as disturbing, blackly comic, and visually imaginative as most reviews relate; however, it left me feeling empty, both on seeing it recently, and on its cinematic release some years ago. Perhaps a film can't do everything, and it is worth sampling this for its satire and hallucinatory production design - analogies with Kafka have been made, and there is something to them, not just in the positive sense but also in the negative - you don't find too many interestingly real human characters, and fewer still human relationships, in Kafka and so it is in 'Brazil'; that both too appear based on dreams is significant - like a dream, 'Brazil' lacks a strong narrative structure, making do instead with an abstracted love interest and the threat of persecution - for me, that's not quite enough to make this deeply moving or memorable. Despite the dark trappings, it ends up being a bit light and unsatisfying. (It's also interesting to find Tom Stoppard as a screenwriter - his plays, for all their incredible technical skill and overt erudtion, leave me similarly unmoved) In his production notes, Terry Gilliam states that he wanted to ensure that the audience was 'entertained' - I suppose I'd like a bit more from a film.

Rating:
Summary: 'You Have To Say The Number!'-A Bit About 'Brazil'
Review: 'Where hearts were entertaining June.We stood beneath an amber moon' opens what may be one of the best movies of all time(if you can understand it). One person on his 'Funniest Movies Ever' list said this movie was a comedy. He was wrong. It is part comedy(undertones, respectively) but meant to be a bit of a warning in context, yet is presented as a dream. Sam Lowery(Jonathon Pryce) finds himself in his ... job, with his obsessed mother and her friends('Salt?'), and with a rouge heating engineer('We're all in it together, kid')all while attempting to avoid the Ministry and find his dream girl(Kim Griest as Jill Layton).

This film went through the mill on its way to being released. But you can buy 'The Battle of Brazil' for that. This is not an art house movie. This is not a 100 per cent comedy. This is a part satire, part surreal, part comedy(yes, somewhat see above), part dream of a man in depserate need of something new. The cast fits the characters. Katherine Helmond as the plastic sugery obsessed mother, Jim Broadbent as Dr Jaffe, Robert DeNiro as Archibald 'Harry' Tuttle, I could go on with the entire cast, but the other reviews can be referenced.

A friend told me that if you understand this movie, you are exceptional. He was right not only because he understands the movie, but appreciates it for what it is. This movie was not appreciated by Ebert. He said it was too confusing due to multiple storylines. It does have many stories, but to me it was easy to follow and undertsand. I understood it fine the first time round(not the 27th like most people, who then have a vague idea)because it depends on the person and how well they can process and analyze. The adman5189 who wrote that atrocious list didn't understand it. He just said it was wild. This great movie is not 'wild.' It is not 'fun' or 'funny.' It's a dark, '1984'-esque film of great proportions. It must be bought to be watched and understood. Whence you find yourself reading this sadly short review(bloody limits) please don't say it was unhelpful. I was merely walking you through why it as not appreciated when it was out and why you should only get it if you can take what was just said. This is not meant to be a biting critique of others or the reader. Please take this to heart.

Rating:
Summary: Funny, yet Depressing
Review: *Not the Criterion Collection version*
Whenever one takes a look into the future of our society, it's never one of peaches and cream, but always a dystopia, filled with dark shadows, oppressive government, and gargantuan buildings. Brazil is no exception. Sure, many of the visuals created by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam are striking and quite creative. The story produces many laughs yet never quite hits its mark. Its not that its a bad movie, but one much too busy and dark for its own good. The plot twists and turns until its last depressing slump, complete with the main character humming that oh so famous song.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the IRON CAGE
Review: ... Read some Max Weber to have a better understand of this movie
MY OPINION
5 stars for its message
2 stars for its setting and scenery
4 stars for everything else
5 stars for originality

Rating:
Summary: Gilliam...
Review: ...is some kind of mad genius. On a par with Blade Runner for its' inventive visuals, Brazil is awesome.

Rating:
Summary: A SHORT REVIEW
Review: 1) Buy only the Criterion Collection version. 2) Put on your thinking caps. 3) Enjoy the bizarre special effects. 4) Open your mind to philisophical themes. 5) Enjoy great performances. 6) Get off computer andbuy/watch this now. 7) AWESOME ENDING!!!!!! (MAKES YOU GO HMMMM....)

Rating:
Summary: Full-fledged genius
Review: A chilling apiffany oh a future gone wrong.

This by my homle opinion is the jewel in Gilliam's crown. An ode to 1984 and Farenheit 451.