Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: BRAZIL (1985)

From: [email-masked] (Ted Prigge)
Date: 30 Jun 1997 23:53:04 GMT

BRAZIL
                              [Spoilers]
                       A film review by Ted Prigge
                        Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge

Director: Terry Gilliam
Writers: Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard
Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Robert DeNiro, Ian 
Holm, Bob Hoskins, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Charles McKeown, 
Ian Richardon, Peter Vaughn, Gordon Kaye

Terry Gilliam has a warped mind.  We all knew he was a tad off-kilter 
when we saw his bizarre animation on "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and 
other brit shows in the 60s, but this is the film that separated him 
from the "Python" pack and established him as not only one of the 
greatest directors of our times, but as an intellectual, cryptic and 
bizarro individual.

"Brazil" is a black, black, black comedy set in an alternate reality or 
a future (the film cryptically says in the beginning "Somewhere in the 
20th century") probably in England.  The world is ruled by "The 
Ministry" which serves as a place where everything is ultra-organized 
and superefficient.  But everyone seems to be happy because everything 
is convenient.  Every room has little TVs (without Big Brother's face - 
heh heh) and behind the walls are tons of tubes and wires.  But things 
keep breaking but can't be fixed because you need a billion forms to 
even walk out of the office to go and fix it up.

Our hero is the daydreaming Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce, pre-"Miss Saigon" 
days), a low-level government worker who has fantasies of him flying and 
saving a beautiful woman trapped in a cage.  This dream sequence is 
shown intermittingly in the film.  His mother, Ida (Katherine Helmond - 
you know, from "Who's the Boss?"), is a filthy rich woman who dines with 
her superficial friends, gets bizarre face-lifts from Dr. Jaffe (Jim 
Brodbent) - the coolest effect in the film, by the way - and wants her 
son to be a high-level worker with an office and benefits and the whole 
nine yards.  But Sam seems content with his dreams.  But it seems 
everyone wants him to wake up to reality and be shallow like everyone 
else.

The plot of the film is set in motion when a government worker 
accidentally screws up an arrest form and gets the wrong man.  The 
police break in in a hilariously ridiculous arrest scene, break all the 
windows, bust up the apartment above theirs and put a sack cloth over 
their man - a Mr. Buttle.  The scene is handled perfectly, with 
satirical comedy, as the family is distraught and confused by what is 
happening and the big cheese walks in and coldly gives her forms to sign 
("This is your receipt, and this is my receipt for your receipt.").

We then meet Sam who has to sort this mess out for his nervous and 
slightly incompent boss, Mr. Kurtzman (the always amazing Ian Holm).  
But he is distracted because on his way to work one day, he sees a woman 
who is a dead ringer for the woman in his dreams.  She turns out to be a 
butch truck driver/alleged-rebel, Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who wants 
nothing to do with him but is somewhat drawn by his kafkaesque ways of 
wooing her ("I love you...er, er, in my dreams I love you!").  

Sam also gets into the rebellion thanks to an encounter with a renegade 
air-conditioner repairman (Get that for a rebel!), Harry Tuttle (Robert 
DeNiro, awesome as usual), who was the man the Ministry was looking for 
in the beginning and who quit the government because of too much 
paperwork.  His interception of a phone call when Sam's air conditioning 
dies winds him in a lot of trouble with the Ministry of Works, 
represented by two weird repairmen, one being Spoor (Bob Hoskins). 

Sam ends up taking the big promotion his mother set up for him just so 
he can track down this Jill Layton easily, but finds himself overwraught 
with even more paperwork and a tiny, claustrophobic office where he 
shares a desk with a bizarre man named Lime (co-writer Charles McKeown). 
 In possibly the best scene in the film, he has a Chaplin-esque war over 
who gets the majority of the desk with Lime.  His boss is a 
quick-talking Mr. Warren (Ian Richardson), who shows him to his office 
and yells at him for having a messy desk since all he's doing is 
becoming obsessed with Jill.

The film is a plunge into the deepening insanity of a man who is having 
a war between his dreams and the reality of a burdonsome world which is 
too uber-efficient for its own good.  Soon everyone has turned against 
him, including his best friend, Jack (a memorably menacing Michael 
Palin, who gets to don the coolest mask in 80s cinema).  And by the end, 
he has won - he is totally numb and lives inside his mind, flying in the 
clouds with his dream girl and humming the cool latino song "Brazil."  

The film is deeply satirical, almost as much as what seems to be its big 
inspiration, "1984."  For one thing, everyone but the rebels and Sam are 
superficial twits.  In one scene, he attends his mother's party ("Simply 
everyone is here!") and meets some of the weirdest people.  There is 
also a running gag about plastic surgery - his mother has been getting 
it and as the film goes on she's getting younger and younger.  
Meanwhile, her one friend has been getting complications to her 
complications to her complications and by the end, is wrapped like a 
mummy being pushed in a wheelchair by her shallow daughter (one scene, 
he meets her while she's lingerie shopping, prompting what may be the 
funniest joke in the film).

And the end prompts a huge action sequence which is set into motion 
after a frightening torture sequence where Sam is strapped into a metal 
chair in the middle of a huge dome.  There are many explosions in the 
film since there are terrorists who are always trying to get people to 
realize how horrible society is but they're too wrapped up in things to 
even notice.  In once scene, Sam has lunch with his mother at a fancy 
restaurant and in the middle of the meal, an explosion takes place but 
they don't even look and the Matire D' sets up a block and has the 
orchestra keep playing.

This also features several brilliant tracking shots.  The most menacing 
one is when Sam is strapped down before the torture sequence and the 
camera pulls back from his face to show how small he is in the dome.  
Another one - the best one - shows an office full of people running 
around and the camera quickly zooms from the back up to the front with 
people running in front if the camera but never hitting it and then 
zooms right up to Ian Holm.

This is possibly one of the best films of the 80s and one of the most 
cryptically brilliant films ever made.  Terry Gilliam's image of a 
superficial society where dreams have become scarce is perfectly done 
the way he wanted it, even though he had to fight a company who wanted 
to manufacture it for the masses, even though it's more of a cult film 
nowadays.  But never has Terry Gilliam's direction been more on target. 
 He perfectly bullseyes who he wants to get and makes the film hilarious 
if not totally bizzare.  Indeed, this film deserves multiple viewings 
just to get everything.

The Oscar-nominated script is wonderfully biting.  It pokes fun at 
everything and contains some of the most clever lines ever.  It also has 
some of the most eccentric characters in all of cinematic history.  
Terry Gilliam's masterpiece so far would be "Brazil" since it perfectly 
shoots at what he wants and gets right on target.  Besides, it's just so 
damn cool.

MY RATING (out of 5): *****

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