"BRAZIL" SHINING CINEMATIC SWORD

          The story of Terry Gilliam's career as a director is to make a brilliant movie, watch it go over audience's heads, receive filmmaker's probation because it didn't bring in enough money, then watch it become a cult favorite.
          Brazil (1985) is the former Monty Python member's dystopian masterpiece (one of two, actually, the other being 12 Monkeys). Jonathan Pryce (Gov. Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) plays Sam Lowry, a nebbish dreamer trapped in a dark and lonely world of obedient, lifeless functionaries.
          The drab 1930s retro-future aesthetic, replete with automaton-like office personnel, calls George Orwell to mind. A prescient film from a visionary artist, if Brazil has lost any impact 33 years later, it's because now it hits too close to home.
          Think Orwell meets Kafka, only funnier.
          In a world of TVs everywhere, and helpful Fatherland reminders such as DON'T SUSPECT A FRIEND, REPORT HIM, and SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE, Sam Lowry dreams of flying in a shiny metal suit with big godly hair, spreading his mechanical wings and turning somersaults in the clouds, a majestic superhero of love free to live a fulfilling life--until he wakes up again and has to get shoved around in the stifling nightmare of ducts and hoses and bungled procedures.
          An alarmingly simple clerical error results in the Secret Police storming into an innocent family's apartment and taking the dad away in chains. They were looking for a Tuttle and instead they got a Buttle. A neighbor asks if the mom with the kids and the abducted husband is okay, and immediately the Secret Police start shooting.
          "That is your receipt for your husband. And this is my receipt for your receipt."
          When asked on TV to what he attributes the rise in terrorist attacks, the Deputy Minister proclaims, "Bad sportsmanship!"
          "The bombing campaign is now in its 13th year."
          "Beginner's luck!"
          Blackly comic images of surreal satire abound: a tug-of-war with a desk shared between two closet-size office rooms, a secretary with mechanical assistance connected to her flesh transcribing cries of anguish from ongoing torture like a court reporter.
          Featuring an all-star supporting cast including Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, and Michael Palin. Plus stunning, perpetually rewarding visuals and a musical leitmotif as ironic and dissonant as Kubrick's use of "We'll Meet Again" in Dr. Strangelove.
          As his daydream self, keen of eye and swift with shining sword, Lowry sees a recurring beautiful woman. What happens when he meets in the actual grimy world a woman who looks just like his dream girl and who fights the dystopian state of the Faustian future is the story that reminds us, "We're all in this together!"


BRAZIL
Starring Jonathan Pryce,
Robert De Niro,
Ian Holm,
Kim Greist,
Katherine Helmond,
Jim Broadbent,
Bob Hoskins,
Michael Palin
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Written by Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard,
Charles McKeown
Runtime 132 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE