Brazil - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"There you are, your own number on your very own door. And behind that door, your very own office! Welcome to the team, DZ-015!"

As far as I have heard, Brazil is one of those movies that you absolutely have to watch if you're just the least bit interested in movies. A lot of critiques hail it as one of the best and most important movies ever made, and it's in my father's top five as well, but for some reason, I've just never had the desire to watch it. This happens to me a lot, and it's really kind of stupid, because I always end of liking these kinds of movies a whole lot more than I'd expected. With this in mind, I finally decided to watch Brazil last night, and before the opening scene had even finished, I knew that I just absolutely had to write about it. Brazil is is written and directed by Terri Gilliam, who in my experience is a very unpredictable and diversive film maker. He's the director behind several classic comedies such as The Holy Grail and Life of Bryan, but he's also made several cult classics such as Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and of cause, Brazil. 

The plot of the movie is a little strange and weird to put it mildly, but never so much so that it became too unbelievable and too artsy fartsy for my taste.  It takes place in an alternate and futuristic world, where an over protective and paranoid totalitarian government has taken complete control over the nameless city that our main character Sam Lowry lives in. Sam works for the government, just like almost everyone else does, and his job is to collect and store the millions and utter millions of forms and contracts that the government makes everyone fill out. Sam is lonely and tired of his boring existence, and it seems to him that he's the only person in the entire world who doesn't care about plastic surgery, governmental regulation, power, money or control. His boss is horrible at his job and relies on Sam to fix everything he does wrong, which includes fixing his computer and taking care of his paperwork and his decision making too. Technology has a big tendency to just suddenly stop working in this alternate universe as well, and when one of the millions of forms that Sam's department takes care of is altered with as the result of a typing error, our protagonist's life is changed in every way possible. 

Being a movie that critiques hail as one of the best films of all time, I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear me say that it has a lot of hidden messages about society, capitalism, selfishness and so on and so forth. The way this movie handles these elements is what made it stand out from most of the other, often slightly dull critique favourites back when it was released, and I definitely felt that Terry Gilliam had a lot of things to say with Brazil, especially about technology and governments. Dreams play a big role in this film as well, because of how they're used to display what Sam Lowry is feeling at specific points in time throughout the story. His dream is a reoccurring one, and it shows how much he longs for a better, more adventurous and more loving life, where he's free to make decisions on his own and control his own destiny. The life that Sam lives in these dreams is virtually the the polar opposite of the one he lives when he's awake, and I felt surprisingly sympathetic towards him for large portions of the movies duration, because of how happy he is in his dreams, and how unhappy he is when he's awake. Apart from this rather obvious way of understanding the dream sequences, I got a feeling that they were used to tell another story as well, one that has much more weight to it than it might seem like at first glance.

Alas, we've come to the sad part of this review. Brazil might have gotten off to a good start so far, but that won't last for long, cause we're about to delve into the political undertones of Terry Gilliam's cult favourite. The main message of this film is that technology has taken too much control of everyday lives, and that people should spend more time taking care of each other, rather than being paranoid and greedy. Seems familiar, doesn't it? I think so too. Even though Gilliam does a good job of telling his story in a different and original manner, the content of his messages remain incredibly predictable and out dated, in terms of where we are now. My theory is that these preachy undertones might have been somewhat original and new back in 1985 when Brazil first came out, which would explain why so many slightly more seasoned movie lovers and critiques think it's such a great film, but judging from a 2013 standpoint, Brazil just isn't as hard hitting or as groundbreaking for most of its runtime as its hype had me believing. I'm fully capable of appreciating the fact that this movie helped usher in a new era of movies and that its a different take of the political satire genre, but that being said, watching it for the first time wasn't as religious an experience as I had hoped it would have been. I understood what the subplots had to say about technology and control, and I got the metaphors and the dream sequences and what they wanted to emphasise, but they only served to make me go "Oh, okay, that's interesting, I guess", and not "Blimey Charlie, that's incredible!". 

On the other hand though, Gilliam did manage to create an incredible main character for this movie. Sam Lowry is played by a guy called Jonathan Pryce, an actor I've never heard of before, and he did an incredibly good job at making me feel sympathetic towards his character, more so than I've experienced in quite some time. I understood what he was like and what he wanted to do with his life, but the situations he got himself into just weren't as exiting or as heartbreaking as my amount of sympathy for the character had the potential to make them be. I also didn't buy into his infatuation with Kim Greist's character whatsoever, which is a pretty big thing considering the fact that this romance is the main plot point of the whole movie, and I ultimately ended up wishing that the movie would have focused on an entirely different part of Sam's journey towards freedom. The romance just slowed the plot down tremendously, and had it not been there at all and had everything been centered around Sam's character and his standing up against his job, his life and his situation instead, Brazil would have been a much better movie. Taking out Greist's character would have shaped off a good forty minutes of the movie's 132 minute runtime as well, which would have made it much more watchable and a lot less dull. 

You probably think that I absolutely hated Brazil by now, and to be honest, I did loathe most of the things I saw during the first 90 minutes of it. Around the 90 minute mark though, something changes, and the movie makes a complete 180 in terms excitement, and all the bad things from the first hour and a half is completely left behind and forgotten. Sam's actions have caught up with him at this point, and as a result, we go on a 40 minute adventure of pure movie spectacularness, and the way these moments were filmed and told made it seem as if they were directed by a totally different person. The weird romance is almost completely forgotten and the preachy messages were put aside, and what I got to see instead was the movie that I wanted Brazil to be from the very beginning, which is Sam's journey and Sam's journey alone. The way the whole thing concludes is chocking and crushingly enchanting beyond belief, and it's by far one of the best final acts to a movie I've ever seen. Had the movie only been this exiting and compelling throughout its entire runtime, I have no doubt that Brazil would have been a masterpiece in my eyes. The fact that I couldn't fall asleep that night is a testimony to the magic that is these 35-40 minutes of mind blasting storytelling, and I'm truly envious of the people who feel this way about the whole film. 

Okay, so let's recap what we've leaned to so far. The first 90 minutes are mostly dull and boring, and I was only kept awake by a few beautiful dream sequences and a likable and entertaining main character. I just realised that I've completely neglected to talk about Robert De Niro's character so far, which isn't too surprising however, considering the fact that he's only on screen for about 20 minutes. The scenes he did have were great though, and I have no clue why anyone though it would be a good idea to have Kim Greist take up so much screen time compared to him. Had it not been for the incredible final act, Brazil would have gotten a rating of two out of six, but instead, it manages to claw its way one step up the ladder, which lands it on a three out of six and the rating of being worth the watch. I'm sorry dad! (3/6)

Brazil IMDb page here

Brazil tailer here