I have been a fan of dystopian story-lines since I read 1984 as a teen.

Brazil

This review will contain spoilers and is a full review of the entire film.

It was immediately one of my favorite books and still remains my favorite dystopian book. Until Brazil I had seen few dystopian movies that made an impact on me but a few that did would be "Equilibrium", "Gattaca", and "V for Vendetta". I had never heard of or seen "Brazil" until about a week ago when my boyfriend suggested it for his movie night.

"Brazil" is directed by Terry Gilliam, he is known for directing "12 monkeys" and also for doing animations for "Monty Python" and when you see "Brazil" this makes the eccentric, sometimes bizarre atmosphere makes sense.

So, initially I was struck by the strange sets. The steam-punkesque computers and monitors, the odd ducts that are in every room, the crazy wiring inside of the walls with brightly colored cords. The aesthetics are confusing as you can't really place what year it may take place and I don't really think you are supposed to. If anything, I gathered it was modern day (as of 1985 when it was released) but just a bit "different". According to the internet it takes place in a retro-future setting.

The film starts off with a shocking scene. It shows a clearly impoverished family enjoying Christmas festivities (which the film refers to as "Capitalism for Christ") when suddenly a hole is sawed into their ceiling and swat-team looking men come flooding in, bag the father/husband in a strappy sack, get the shaking wife to sign some papers and then give her a receipt for her husband. Leaving the family, and their home, in shambles as quickly as they appeared, they were gone.

The upstairs neighbor calls down to ask if the woman is okay but she is unable to even talk. We found out already -right before the swat team scene- that this whole thing was due to a bug being swatted that fell into a typewriter causing a mis-key and changing the name on a form. They had seized the wrong man for a crime he didn't commit and the neighbor, Jill Layton, is determined to jump through the initially comical bureaucratic hoops to get to the bottom of this mix up.

Sam Lowry, the main character in this film is a low-level bureaucrat living an un-stimulating life that he isn't happy with but has fully resigned himself to living. He doesn't want the promotion his mom keeps trying to force on him and he simply wants to go to work, go home to his small apartment -filled with strange contraptions like self-pouring coffee and automatic toaster- and day-dream. He has vivid day dreams of himself flying with majestic wings and following a long-haired woman that looks exactly like, Jill Layton. Though he has not yet met her in reality.

The fact that he recognizes Jill from his dreams causes Sam to chase after her in real-life when he sees her at his office where she is trying to settle the mix up that inevitably kills her neighbor's husband. He very aggressively follows her trying to explain himself and eventually they are on the run together after trying to avoid being arrested themselves.

The end of the film is what I really liked about it. Sam and Jill fell in lust or whatever you want to call it when movie characters are in love after a few days together and Sam gets the idea to legally kill Jill so they can run off together. He does this successfully and they are making love in his mother's bed -she's on vacation- when that ole' swat team comes down and seizes them both.

The Ending...

We are then brought through a, sort of psychedelic, scene where Sam sees his mother who is now young -she is getting ghastly looking procedures throughout the film to look younger- and he gets "saved" by Robert Deniro's character -whom I forgot to mention but he's an illegal HVAC guy that uninvitedly came to Sam's home to fix his AC problem causing the HVAC people to be angry with Sam throughout the film- but then Deniro gets smothers by flying pieces of paper and disappears. Sam ends up in a house on the back of a truck and we see Jill in the front seat and they are driving off into the outside world full of nature.

In reality when he was in a chair, facing his former-friend, who has a long needle to stick into his nose, to his brain, and other torturey-looking devices, this was it. We saw this before the psychedelic -hard to follow as much of the film- scene and this was the reality. Robert Deniro coming in to rescue him was just his day-dreams. As it pans out he is in a -nifty looking creepy huge room- in a chair, the "doctors" mumbling about how he is done, he's lost it. And credits.

I can see that the review is hard to follow and it was hard to write because the film itself is a bit hard to follow. It was harder for my boyfriend than myself but it was still scatter-brained and disorganized and I think that was intentional. The film was filled with scary attacks from swat teams, explosions, talks of terrorists, and retro looking capitalist ads. One of my favorites was an add for a vacation in a "panic-free environment".

A cautionary tale.

So, while I really like the film, it's aesthetics, and the performances in writing my review I came to realize it doesn't really have anything new to say. It is a pretty generic dystopian tale if you dissect it. I, however, think that the awesome directing, cinematography, and elaborate settings make it very worth while. There were several comical scenes, heart-breaking scenes, and simply scary scenes. I think Gilliam did a good job of conveying how "robotic" people can becomes when something horrific and inhumane becomes a norm, not reacting to the mayhem and unethical bureaucracy going on around them. It is, like most dystopian stories, a cautionary tale. A reminder to not let it get that far because if we do, it'll be too late when we try to get out. In my opinion, a good dystopian tale generally doesn't have a happy ending so I was relieved to see that the generic "riding into the sunset" scene was just a trick.

All in all, I think it is absolutely worth while and there were some real golden nuggets of comedy and terror in that film. I can't say how much I love the directing, costumes, and aesthetics of the entire film enough. If you are a fan of dystopian story-lines, dig movies from the 80's, or just a fan of Terry Gilliam I say give it a go and you probably won't be disappointed even if a bit confused. Many complain the film was too long at 2 hours and 22 minutes but I didn't find myself bored, albeit I can sit through some pretty slow films and love every minute. Speaking of which, I will be reviewing "Paris, TX" next.

Stay tuned for more movie reviews.