Brazil (movie)

Brazil (first released on February 20, 1985) is a dystopic comedy film directed by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, and written by him, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. Jonathan Pryce stars. Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins and Ian Holm are also featured.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

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), 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.

Production and release history

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 finally releasing Gilliam's version 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.

Sheinberg's edit, the so-called "Love Conquers All" version, was shown on network television, and is available as an extra on the Criterion DVD release of the film.

Points to consider after several viewings

• When does Sam lose contact with reality? Does he undergo a lobotomy or is his final escapism merely a consequence of severe torture inflicted by a former good friend? Are daydreams good or do they blur the distinction between fantasy and reality for everybody?
• Do the terrorists exist at all, or is it just a coverup for the incompetence of Central Services (et al) when all the technology fails? Perhaps the bombings are staged to justify the information department's existence. Or perhaps they are caused by some sort of faulty equipment.
• Does Tuttle exist at all, or is he just another of Sam's daydream fantasies? In fact, isn't it really Sam himself who tampers with the air conditioning? No one else really meets Tuttle, although he does make an exit when Sam's girlfriend appears.
• Is the hate-to-love transition inconsistent, or is it that Sam struggles a lot to prove himself worthy to her? When this love-transition finally comes, is it not exactly where Sam loses touch with reality completely?
• Notice the society portayed: companies and government are melded together. Their technology level is quite high, but all the wrong things are automated, and they are extremely poorly designed. They put energy into designer ducts, when no one really wants those ducts at all. Computers and telephones are also beautiful examples, half modern, half Victorian. Due to these misdesigns (driven by a central authority), everybody is incompetent at what they do.
• What similarities exist between the movie and the societies of United Kingdom under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979 - 1990) or the United States under President Ronald Reagan (1981 - 1989)? After all, isn't the film contemporary to the IRA bombings in London?
• What is the deeper meaning of all the dream sequences? While some of them are clear, many seem to be confusing to the point that the viewer will dismiss them as "just dreams". It should be noted that due to budget problems Gilliam was unable to shoot many of the dream sequences he had planned.
• Doesn't it seem as if it is perpetually Christmas time? What does the constant presence of the Christmas season say about this society's relationship with consumerism? Also, think about the fact that people are constantly giving each other the same cheap paperweight gift. What does this say about how the film views interpersonal relationships in relation to consumer goods?