Brazil (first released on February 20, 1985) is a dystopic comedy film directed by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam. It was written by Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. It stars Jonathan Pryce, and features Robert De Niro, Kim
Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.
Synopsis
Set "somewhere in the 20th century", the world of Brazil is a
gritty urban hellhole patched over with cosmetic surgery and "designer ducts for your discriminating taste". Automation pervades every facet of life from the toaster and
coffee machine to doorways, but paperwork, inefficiency, and mechanical failure are the
rule.
The story begins with Sam Lowry (Pryce), a low-level bureaucrat whose
primary interests in life are his vivid dream fantasies to the tune of a 1940s big-band hit "Brazil",
inadvertently getting involved with terrorist intrigue when his dream girl
(Greist) turns up as the neighbor of a man ("Buttle") arrested as a terrorist on
account of a typographical error ("Tuttle"). Other people in Sam's life include Harry (DeNiro), the terrorist who is actually a
renegade heating technician; Jack (Palin), a family man and childhood friend of Sam's whose actual occupation is a government torturer; and Sam's mother (Helmond). It also features his nervous boss played by Ian Holm and a friend of his
mother who undergoes a series of disturbing cosmetic surgeries.
A mysterious wave of terrorist bombings is met by an increasingly powerful Ministry of Information, whose jackbooted thugs never admit to arresting and torturing the wrong man.
Sam's simultaneous pursuit of the truth and the girl draws him into the higher echelons of the Ministry, despite Jack's repeated
efforts to warn him that his quest will inevitably bring Sam into more danger than he can cope with.
Analysis
Gilliam refers to this film as the second of a trilogy of movies, including
Time Bandits (1981) and
The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen (1989). He notes that the three films share a related theme of the
struggle for imagination and free thinking in a world constantly suppressing such ideas.
Unfortunately the plot has some major confusing points, the most notable being the instant hate-to-love transition made by the female lead for the hero Sam. With its complex, subtle, and confusing plot, packed with jokes
and ideas, Brazil is a movie to be watched several times. It is also packed with
visual detail. The film incorporates many references to the final episode of The Prisoner.
In further analysis of the film's core ideas it can become quite difficult to come to concrete conclusions. Where exactly does
Sam slip from reality into fantasy? Do terrorists actually exist, or is it simply the MOI staging bombings to give reason for its
existence? Analysts from the political Left also raise the question whether parallels are meant to be made between the world of Brazil and either the societies of the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979 - 1990) or the United States under President Ronald Reagan (1981 - 1989) both
contemporary to the film's production, while analysts from the political Right draw parallels between Brazil's government
bureaucracy with communism, social-democracy and socialism, in analogy to Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four novel, which Orwell himself described as a criticism of communism. The movie can thus be interpreted from a civil libertarian perspective from either the political Left or Right.
Production and release history
The movie, a production of producer Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures (not to be confused with Joseph E.
Levine's Embassy Pictures), was released internationally outside of
the U.S. by 20th Century Fox in Gilliam's original 142-minute
version, while Universal handled domestic distribution.
Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg
and Gilliam disagreed over the film; Sheinberg insisted on drastically reediting the film to give it a happy ending, which
Gilliam resisted vigorously.
The movie was shelved by Universal, but Brazil promptly won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for "Best Picture". That, coupled
with a full-page Variety ad taken out by Gilliam questioning Sheinberg, shamed Universal into releasing a modified
131-minute version supervised by Gilliam in 1985.
Upon release, however, Brazil performed poorly at the box office.
Audiences were confused. Nonetheless, the film remains a cult favorite,
particularly among Gilliam's fans. In tone and setting, it has similarities to Gilliam's later reality-twisting Twelve Monkeys, and the controversy about the film's ending is reminiscent
of Blade Runner.
Brazil has also been compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; in fact, Gilliam's working title for the
movie was 1984½. Terry Gilliam claimed he had not read 1984 before making "Brazil".
The 131-minute domestic version was released on VHS and LaserDisc. The original European cut is currently available on DVD.
Sheinberg's edit, the so-called "Love Conquers All" version, was shown on syndicated television, and is available as an extra
on the Criterion Collection DVD release of the film.
In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time.
External links
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