Brazil

Regarding the symbolism in Brazil, of course that's the point. Lowry's dreams are not all that unique. They are a result of the regimented world he lives in. Look at all of our modern films: the two dominant characters are the rebel and the ordinary joe living a mundane life who somehow escapes from it or begins to do outrageous things.

(That's why I hated Titanic, well, partially. Rose is breaking out of her supposedly constricted life. It's propaganda. It makes it appear that the "freedoms" we have now are exactly what we need in order to escape from the restriction of prejudices and ignorance. Rose tied herself into the ever-growing strait-jacket of modern political myths. But in order to glorify those myths Cameron had to denigrate our past and all that it stood for, making its adherents look like chauvinistic fools. The person I know who liked Titanic the most liked it for that reason - she wanted to escape from her own life and envied Rose. But such people always stop there. They live in their fantasies and never stop to investigate why they feel their lives must be escaped from.)

Another note about the samurai he fights is that it continued to suddenly disappear. Lowry initially didn't know what he was fighting, for one. There really is no definitive enemy to fight. We are boxing shadows. It is a system which has no heart or kill point. That's part of the frustration, particularly for those who can't think abstractly. Most of them lash out at "the media." They can't locate who they're fighting, and so they accept the lies.

Listen to the opening interview on the television. The terrorists are refusing to "play the game." The assumption is that they are simply jealous because someone else is "winning the game." Why play at all? Any hope of that is over though. The 60s was the last gasp of opposition and it got swallowed up. Now the nostalgia for protest is a marketing tool. Consumption is a replacement for thought. When you feel angst you go shopping. We've been convinced that our anxiety is caused by something other than what it really is. Commercials are not about self-gratification, but self-doubt.

I read an interview with Gilliam in which he said the reason he could no longer live in America is that there was an unwillingness to think about anything. In the end, you are fighting the conditioning you have received from your entire culture, in essence, fighting yourself and struggling to regain control of your own mind. Parallels between Lowry seeing his own face and Skywalker seeing the same in Return of the Jedi are illuminating.

The point that Gilliam makes in the end is that the enemy is ubiquitous yet intangible. Lowry wanted to run from it, go "far away," never realizing that you can't escape. We still think in terms of a locus of power. But Gilliam, throughout the last part of the film, continually crushed our naive hopes that somehow we can act out the fantasy that many of us may have, to get away, find the girl of our dreams and live in a trailer in a beautiful setting.

Because we have no fear of physical control, we assume that we are free. Some Americans still believe in the myth of rugged individualism. The system is built on lies and that's what Gilliam was showing. It's a "State of mind." You can't escape. The only place that you can be free is in your head. "He got away from us," as they say at the end. That's really the only hope we have left.

On a lighter note, I derive so much glee from watching Lowry's mother walk around with a boot on her head.

One of my favorite novels of all time is George Orwell's 1984, and Brazil is very much a comedic interpretation of that. Brazil shows us a hilarious exaggeration of the monotony of machine like run bureaucracy, and man's constant voyage to avoid responsibility. "That's not my department." Everyone seems to say. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low ranking government employee. When an error leads to the execution of engineer Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) instead of terrorist Archibald Tuttle (Robert De Niro), Sam attempts to fix this, and inadvertently becomes an enemy of the state. Read that scenario again. This is a funny movie. It's a dark comedy/political satire, and almost every joke works. The nonchalant attitude of the government depicted in the film is where a big chunk of the humor comes from. It's a very smart comedy. Honestly if you like political satire, then Brazil is one we can all enjoy together.

The best things I can say about Brazil is that it truly has outstanding special effects, set design and lighting, but I felt the film didn't really know what it was. For me, it started out really strongly as a black humor film about a bureaucratic dystopian world, but then kind of went into action set pieces that I thought were kind of out of place. The strongest part of the film for me, is the first act of the film and just getting to know this kind of 1984-ish dystopian world where everything is paperwork and is filled with machines that don't work. I appreciated the dream sequences and Jonathan Pryce's performance, but overall I also thought the movie was too long and I kind of checked out after the 100 minute mark or so. Even though I did enjoy the film, as a whole, especially for the special effects and set designs, which are really something.

This movie did not leave me with a happy feeling when I was done viewing it, but I definitely found it well worth the time. It posits a dark future world where the government has become a gigantic bureaucratic beast. The simplest exchange requires mountains of paperwork and a strict adherence to procedures has replaced anyone's ability to critically think about what they are doing or stand up to the brutality they know lurks around them. Sam Lowry is a man who seems more than happy to live as a cog in the giant machine. When he sleeps, however, he flies through beautiful blue skies towards the woman of his dreams. As he attempts to correct an "oversight" by the Ministry Of Information for whom he works (one of the more obvious nods to Orwell) which has resulted in an innocent man's death, he finds a woman who appears to be the one in his dreams. The line between his dreams and his reality blur ever further as he goes deeper and deeper into the government machine to find out who she is.

Terry Gilliam once again seems to have spared no expense in making sure every visual element of the world adds up to a cohesive whole which makes you feel as if you're really experiencing the characters' surroundings. And, of course, it is a world rendered realistically enough to feel feasible, and yet surrealistically enough to leave an unforgettable impression on you.

Despite the simplicity of the main plot, the movie is full of subtexts and images which carry a message even though you may not see them on the first viewing. In one scene, a man is buying "clean air" from a vending machine along the street. The sides of the highways are walls of billboards which hide the barren environment beyond. A group of people carry a banner that announces "Consumers for Christ" in a store decorated for the holidays as a small child tells Santa she wants a credit card for Christmas. Actually, therein lies one of the things that may turn some people off to this movie. It seems Gilliam had so many things to say about the state of society today that some people may find the movie lacks a coherent message once it's done. The ending will no doubt come as a shock to many people as well, but it was refreshing to me to see something well outside the Hollywood conventions for a change.

My only real complaint was that Robert De Niro's character was so enjoyable, but saw so little use. Other than that, however, I thought it was a film which presents some compelling things which deserve serious thought, even though most people probably won't be able to get past the trademark Gilliam visual quirkiness to see what he is saying. Eight and a half out of ten from me.

Sam Lowry works within the huge ministry of information in a near-future world of bureaucracy. A simple administration error leads to the death of an innocent man. Lowry finds himself drawn into a world where he is forced to go against the admin world that he works in with devastating results.

This is one of Gilliam's best films (the other being 12 Monkeys). His nightmare vision is complete with wonderful visual touches - some inspired, some very unnerving in their originality. This satire on the world of bureaucracy gone mad has some wonderful elements that don't seem too farfetched - tiny offices, never-ending paperwork, a government so keen to cut costs that people who are arrested are forced to fund their own defence etc. The dream scenes and the romance don't sit too easily beside this element but they help add to the hallucinatory effect of the whole film.

The feeling of paranoia runs wild through the film. Everything in it symbolises the uselessness of trying to work against a unbeatable system and the pointlessness of individual effort - witness Tuttle eventually overcome by the "paperwork" he once resisted. The only problem with the film is that the plot is mostly rubbish, at first it's hidden but in the middle section and the end the holes become obvious.

The cast is mostly excellent despite forced to work with very weird characters. Pryce is brilliant as the quiet bureaucrat pushed into a nightmare by his dreams, although Kim Greist is dull as the focus of his dreams, Jill. The rest of the cast consists of a range of extended cameos including Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Bob Hoskins and an excellent Robert De Niro as a guerrilla heating engineer.

The studio bosses wanted an upbeat happy ending to help sales - basically the final 45 seconds had to go. However Gilliam stuck by his guns and produced a film that is visually inspiring whilst being depressingly based in the real world - right up till the final credit has rolled. "Has anyone seen Lowry?" - everyone should.