Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is a work of originality and humour, intelligently telling a tale of the future with the trademark Gilliam quirkiness. As a part of Gilliam’s Trilogy of Imagination films (the other two being Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the movie is a brilliant look at the madness of our society. It is interesting to watch Brazil today, as the themes are staggeringly current.

Brazil is a work of awesome satire. Gilliam soaks in it from the opening scenes, illustrating his totalitarian future with tongue planted firmly in cheek. His world is inventive but not too far removed from our very own. There is rampant consumerism and meaningless considerations of vanity and status, with the filthy rich seeking out plastic surgery to maintain their youth while daily terrorist bombings go largely ignored due to the public’s numbness to violence.

Brazil takes place in a futuristic and somewhat dystopic Britain. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a government employee assigned the task of fixing a government error committed by a government that “doesn’t make mistakes.” This concept is underlined throughout the movie, with obvious governmental issues (such as an inability to have working elevators in the government building) causing problems throughout the country. The problem is related to a simple typo but quickly blossoms to something entirely different as Lowry discovers just how incompetent and corrupt the system is.

Throughout the tale, Lowry dreams of a beautiful maiden that he must save. One day, he comes face to face with his maiden in the form of Jill (Kim Greist). Jill is considered a terrorist by the government for attempting to clear up a mistake, but Lowry can’t possibly turn her in because she’s the woman of his dreams. He tries to help her but eventually runs into a host of problems that threaten his very existence and sanity.

Gilliam weaves the story between dreams and reality, constantly drawing upon Sam’s issues with his mother (Katherine Helmond) to flesh out the situation. The government’s competency is called into question constantly, as their numerous attempts to handle the citizens using the massively convoluted Ministry prove dazzling in their ineptitude. The movie gets downright hilarious as we are treated to government officials attempting to get the simplest tasks done effectively.

Brazil does well to illustrate that there’s much more to the futuristic vision of Gilliam than a simple us vs. them conception of government takeover. While it could be partially used as a cautionary tale, the future of Gilliam’s imagination is much more than a 1984-esque concept. The future of Gilliam’s imagination is not necessarily evil or even territorial; it is, instead, painstakingly impersonal and indirect. Things are coded, written down and organized meticulously but blindly, leading to countless errors that cost people their lives.

Any real villainy in Brazil is based around the ineptitude and the impersonal relationship the government has with its people more than it is based on government takeover or control. A simple typo leads to a host of problems, for example, that could have easily been remedied by a slight diversion from the status quo. Instead of fixing the problems actively, however, the governmental organizations stick to the script.

Brazil is a science fiction classic. Gilliam’s art design is fantastic, illustrating a future filled with complexity and needless excess. The natural world is about as far from its reality as possible, seemingly existing only in Sam’s dreams. The performances are also good, including one from Robert De Niro as one of the future’s many Tuttles. Gilliam tells a great story and does so with black humour, illustrating that the future we should really be afraid of is one in which we lose one another.

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