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I wanted another viewing before reviewing one of my favorite films of all time. As expected, It’s a masterpiece. After the first viewing I had mixed feelings about it because it is absolutely ridiculous all the way through, but the second time the themes sunk in and I saw what this film really is. It’s a flawless commentary on the direction of our society and all the pitfalls we will, and have since the movie came out, fallen into within our cultural dynamics. It hits the nail on the head on too many issues to even count. At its heart it’s a warning against a totalitarian state, but it can just as easily be a warning about the direction we are heading.

That message is truly what gives the film it’s timeless characteristics and stands as a relevant satire 25 years later. I have no doubt this will stand the test of time as much as the age-old classics such as “Casablanca” and “Gone With the Wind” but for entirely different and more profound reasons. The film itself is a complete visual treat. Creating a world unlike most futuristic worlds. It’s an industrial world filled with technology that malfunctions all the time and yet the characters continue to use it as a crutch. Speaking of the characters, each is a perfect persona of everything that we as citizens do to catalyze the coming totalitarian state. They are developed extensively and fruitfully. The subtle characteristics and features give personality not seen in many films. Do not pass up this film.

Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’ didn’t even make its $15 million budget at the box office in 1985. The film eventually found an audience when it was released on home video and has gained something of a cult classic status. I do not understand why.

The film has nothing to do with the country Brazil, but it opens with the song ‘Aquarela do Brasi’ by Ary Borroso. Sam Lowell, played by a much younger Jonathan Price, is simply bored with his mind-numbing job at his computer terminal. He attempts to escape reality by often fantasising about flying and rescuing a woman in danger. He also switches the screen of his computer at work to black and white television shows. Eventually, we meet Harry Tutte (Robert De Niro), who is able to do what Sam cannot do. He can escape. Rather than being employed by the government as an air conditioning specialist, he freelances his skills. He illegally enters into customers’ homes and exits by sliding down long cables attached to rooftops. Tutte says it is because he hates the paperwork, but I think he just wants to piss off the state. One day, Sam is assigned the task of rectifying an administrative error caused by (get this) a fly getting jammed in a printer. The error results in a chain reaction of mistaken identity which literally involves the girl of his dreams and he becomes a government target.

The special effects, which were probably more special in 1985, don’t seem terribly dated. There is much attention to detail in the elaborate set pieces from the hissing of small pipes to the empty space within the confines of a large, cylindrical room. ‘Brazil’ was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction and rightfully so. The nomination it didn’t deserve was for Original Screenplay. ‘Brazil’ feels like Gilliam’s take on George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Is it any coincidence that the film was likely in production during that year? Both are about characters escaping from an ordered society. Unlike ‘1984’, I found ‘Brazil’ maddeningly difficult to follow. The film has no sense of tone and characters seem to drop in and out without any sort of explanation. The disparate elements of black comedy, sci-fi action, and romance do not cohesively come together. ‘Brazil’ is a confusing, overdone, and often boring futuristic satire.

The aforementioned issues I had with ‘Brazil’ are what I refer to as Terry Gilliam Syndrome. Gilliam is a fine craftsman – his work has a very intelligent and unique display of vision. However, as director, Gilliam is supposed to be the architect, and this is where he fails. His storytelling approach is completely inaccessible to viewers and what we’re left with is just a very pretty corpse.

“I don’t think I could make BRAZIL or anything like it again” - Terry Gilliam

This film satirizes dystopian bureaucracy in a brilliant manner through our hero, Sam Lowry, who lives in an unambitious way. It is not an optimistic film and it is not for all tastes because what’s real and what’s not could be confusing at times. But I think that from seeing the movie once, is not enough to really value it and still, even though I’ve seen it only once, this film has one of the best endings ever.

(Spoilers Alert)

Sam is continually dreaming of a woman and a samurai who is trying to kill him. During the movie, after Sam meets the girl apart from his dream, we get the feeling that Sam tries to overcome the samurai (who represents the system he lives in) through the woman. She is like the channel to escape from that society.

Terrorism plays an important role because the Ministry of Information relies on terrorist threats so that it won’t collapse. But there’s never evidence that there’s even terrorists at all. Instead, the explosions are caused by malfunctioning ducts that Mr. Tuttle (the heating engineer) can prevent from exploding. That’s why he’s the most wanted by the M.O.I. and that’s why they want to capture him; Tuttle could make the M.O.I. redundant and make the bureaucratic system collapse.

Many of these aspects make me love the film but the ending where Sam goes completely insane, at the same time is one of the best things that have ever happened to him. That’s just great.

A wonderful satire of bureaucratic cancer, more relevant today than ever, given the propensity of my current government to absorb once independent industries and install their ductwork into every facet.

As Harry Tuttle, the last true entrepreneur, is ultimately destroyed by mandatory paperwork, so self-employed doctors will be forced into retirement by too much government interference. I can see the vision of this film affecting the world around me on a daily basis, from plastic surgery to the media to the death of independent thought, works like Brazil (like 1984 before it) are important reminders of the dangers of these bureaucratic encroachments; their inefficiencies and illogic.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. It’s got fantastic comedy throughout, great camera work, the use of music is fantastic and it’s got wonderful characters played perfectly by the awesome cast.

The film plays out so well and there is so much to take in. Plus, how many films let you experience terrorism and the extremities of the upper class, all in the same film. Haha.

Also I want to make specific mention of Robert De Niro’s great role.

It was such a joy to watch this film. It was really quite wonderful.

This movie was really phenomenal. Out of all the movies I have ever seen I think I believe that Sam Lowry is my favorite protagonist of all time. Never have I watched a movie where a romance was so brilliantly inter-weaved with a story of science fiction and political dystopia. Not only was the acting of Robert De Niro, Michael Palin and Jonathon Pryce spot on, but the music was the perfect accompaniment to such a dark satirical comedy. The true credits go to the writing and directing. This movie has become my generation’s 1984, and the satirical writing of Gilliam, McKeown, and Stoppard really shine through making it a unique edition to the stories of 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, and Catch 22. Gilliam’s channeling of the direction of Fellini is also wonderful and not only makes the film interesting but also classical in a way, reverberant of the outlandish shots seen in 8 1/2.

Such a strange and dazaling film like Brazil must have been a dream. Gilliam created a completely knew vision of the world. When I first saw the film, some of the aspects were confusing, and some of them were funny and quite observant, like the blumber being killed by paperwork. Brazil is as ambigious as it is supulatively complex. some parts of the movie we aren’t allowed to know, and maybe for good reason, it’s just interesting, as interesting as form 27B/6.

Some might think it’s a cop-out to call Brazil misunderstood, but I’m going to go right out there at say it. Like a lot of movies on this site it bears repeat viewings to absorb. There are certain scenes I could do without, and Kim Greist didn’t do it for me…but even those nitpickings can’t stop it from being a massive achievement. I know it’s a special film for me when I feel altered after having watched it, and for those of you who have felt it when you’ve sat through the proper ending of this film know what I mean.

One of the films overrated by critics, interesting because of the making.

I may be in the minority, but I relish such underdog status. The film, while an undisputed masterpiece of vision and eccentric absurdist genius, is interesting more because of Gilliam’s fight with Universal and the battle that ensued. Anyone who read the excellent book The Battle of Brazil or heard the legend knows this was a tough film to bring to the screen, and the efforts of Gilliam to get it released in it’s intended form is a reason why it’s revered as well as it does. I liked it, but respected it more than enjoyed it and that’s fine too. It may be Gilliam’s most personal film, the one he is most proud of. It’s themes are more relevant than ever.

Like “Blade Runner” and “The Wild Bunch,” this is one of those movies which has been cut and recut so many times I’m never entirely sure which is the real thing. When it came out in the mid-1980s, there was a huge amount of advance publicity about Gilliam’s fight with the studio, which had tried to cut his 142-minute movie and give it a happier ending. According to Wikipedia, that battle ended in a compromise version of 131 minutes, and I guess that’s the one I saw. I dearly wanted to love it, but in all honesty I sat through it fighting the impulse to side with the studio. I thought it would never end, and I’ve never had the impulse to give it another look.

For those who dislike dystopia but are curious about it, this is a must see. Brazil is a story that brings in itself elements from George Orwell’s 1984 and from one of mankind’s most horrible tortures: bureaucracy. Terry Gilliam managed to create in this film, the ultimate need for freedom in a world dominated by paperwork and routine, in which people are cold enough to make you laugh at disgrace, which is embodied in this film by terrorism and reppression. As the film moves on, it becomes more nightmarish and eventually surreal to express a man’s need to get away from a society that doesn’t even care about his tired existence.

Who would have thought a spelling error could be so catastrophic.

If I had my way this movie would top ALL best films ever lists, but unfortunately that would upset a lot of Citizen Kane and Godfather fans who seem to outnumber everybody else (Don’t get me wrong though I love those films but popular opinion can be so annoying).

Gilliam’s masterpiece is nothing short of exquisite, despite it’s many flaws ( the biggest one being having three different versions of the film in circulation ) however it’s a beautiful story bracketed within a stunning absurdist thematic all threaded together with gorgeous felliniesque segues and some of the best black humor ever committed to film.

The sum of it’s parts definitely makes this film an experience everyone has to sit through at least once in a lifetime. Oh yeah and Robert De Niro is in it as well.

Dystopia never looked so good.