Lucas
Versantvoort / August 23, 2013
Terry
Gilliam’s Brazil (named after the 1939 song, “Aquarela do Brasil”) fits
into the type of film that satirizes futuristic, dystopian societies. The two
things keeping it apart from similar films are its humorous screenplay and,
most impressively, its set-design.
The year is…something, in the town
of….somewhere. The film never explains when and where we are and perhaps that’s
the point. The cities of the future could look radically different than how we
view them today, perhaps unrecognizably so. Perhaps Brazil is named
after a city in real-life Brazil except without its characteristic nature and
beaches, etc. We see Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a bureaucrat living the only
way possible for a bureaucrat in a film, bored. His mother (Katherine Helmond)
spends almost all her time at the plastic surgeon; her mother’s friend tries to
hook him up with her daughter; his boss (Ian Holm) depends on him for the most
simple of tasks. In short: a rather restricting life. He dreams, however, of
flying through the clouds and trying to rescue a damsel in distress (Kim
Greist). These dreams, he keeps to himself. When trying to rectify a
bureaucratic error, the cause of which is hilarious, he sees the woman of his dreams
and spends most of the film trying to find her, while also simultaneously
finding himself in all sorts of bureaucratic trouble.
Without a doubt, the real joys of Brazil
are to be found in the many ways both the screenplay and set-design satirize
the dystopian society. These are the things which made me wish the film never
ended, not the main plot which grew rather uninteresting for me towards the
end. Consider a scene where Sam, his mother and some friends are eating in a
restaurant. One of them orders something along the lines of meat. When it
arrives, however, it turns out to be a soft lump of …something, thus ridiculing
in a 2001 kind of way how the food of the future will look (and taste)
like. Moments later, a bomb explodes. While people are bleeding in the
background and fires are being extinguished, Sam and company calmly proceed to
talk as if nothing happened. There are numerous of these kinds of satirical
highlights which I’ll leave for you to discover.
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| Director Terry Gilliam's full-page ad in Variety |
There are a couple of issues with Brazil,
one of which is its consistency in tone. It’s an issue I also had with
Gilliam’s The Fisher King which went from funny to incredibly
melodramatic when Robin Williams’ character’s traumatic history was revealed.
Because much of the film was humorous in nature, I found the dramatic scenes
were more difficult to take seriously. In Brazil, it’s the scene
featuring a certain widow which stands out as the dramatic highlight. Gilliam
knows how to generate pathos, but the satirical nature of both films reduce the
effectiveness somewhat.
A review of Brazil simply
cannot exclude a mention of the film’s troubled history which is a famous
story. To keep it short: director Gilliam fought against Universal’s Sid
Sheinberg who kept the film from being released to make a different cut, the
so-called “Love Conquers All” version (can’t imagine how that would end...).
Gilliam threatened to burn the negative and appeared with
one of the film’s actors, Robert de Niro, on the Today show. He eventually arranged
for private screenings in Los Angeles for the LA Film Critics Assocation, who
awarded it Best Picture, Director and Screenplay after which Sheinberg,
embarrassed, was forced to release the film anyway. What makes this background story interesting are the parallels between Sheinberg’s actions
and the very point Gilliam was trying to make with Brazil (i.e.
bureaucratic meddling, etc.). It lends an incredible irony that is both funny
and frightening.
In the end, Brazil has earned
its place in the Hall of Fame of satire with its hilarious, though flawed,
script and fantastic art-direction. See this film—not for the main plot—but for
the endlessly creative satire.
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