Brazil Reviews

Mind Bendingly Long

There seems to be an element of the "Emporer’s new clothes" about Brazil.

Certainly there are impressive aspects and as a humorous parody of 1984 it succeeds. It’s a fusion of ‘How Tomorrow’s World saw the future in 1945’ and Reggie Perrin. The sets are brilliant and Gilliam’s ability to extract hilarity out of the banal and extrapolate is undiminished, for the first hour it’s superb, worthy of a six at least.

Ultimately, for me at least, it fails almost as spectacularly as it starts. There is no discernable plot, and once the wow factor of the visual imagery recedes your left waiting for something to happen and it’s a long wait, another 90 minutes until the end of the film in fact. Kim Griest was as awful as the dream sequences were pointless.

Quite boring really.

The Best Sort of SF.

Brazil is one of my two favourite films and I've seen it several times over now. Rewatching it it struck me again how little it's aged in 20 years, thanks to Gilliam's timeless visuals and a preposterously brilliant script (by Tom Stoppard among others).

If anything, it's more relevant today than it was in 1985, what with a society entirely geared towards combatting possibly non-existent terrorists, cosmetic surgery-obsessed rich people, children being given credit cards by Santa, the countryside no longer existing due to the human greed... Everything Brazil poked fun at then is even more of a serious problem now, which I think qualifies it as possibly the best science-fiction film ever. If somehow you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour and do.

Umm - not for me

Brazil - I keep coming back to this film with the hope that I can be dedicated and inspired enough to watch it through.

Well, this time I did and i'm not sure I should have.....

It has a bit of a reputation - as does its director - for being that little bit 'out there' - or, to put it another way - stark raving bonkers!

The film is set in the future, where a big brother (no - not that one!) style government is in office. Unfortunately, terrorists are in the midle of a concerted bombing capaign - into which our 'hero' is drawn.

Our 'hero' is a minion of the government who has some fairly bizare dreams about a girl, whom he later finds to exist in real life. From there on in, he is drawn into her world and finds himself more and more opposed to his masters - with dire consequences.

So, is it any good? To be honest, I still don't really know. If the definition of a good film is one that alters your mood and leaves you with a sence of disquiet - then yes, it succeeds.

Did I enjoy it? No, not really.

Visually it is still a treat, although less impressive than when it was released. Plot is somewhat confused and I guess that Terry Gillian balked at cutting it too much - which is fine in some instances, but does result in a film that is 2hours and 15 minutes long - probably about half an hour too long.

The acting is good - Michael Palin being outstanding. And the biggest suprise - to me al least - was Dinero turning up in the midle of it - he really was the only truly likeable character in the whole film.

And I guess that is my greatest problem with Brasil - I can stand the length of it, the slighly arty pretensious feel, the Pythonesque humour and the slight feeling of depression it leaves you with. What I can't stand is the fact that you don't acctually relate, or even like, any of the central characters as such.

I don't think it is a bad film, just not one for me - I guess I was born to late to appreciate and venerate Python!

George Orwell on acid

Sam Lowry is an ordinary guy in a dead-end bureaucratic nightmare of a job who likes to daydream of better things. A minor mishap leads him into a downward spiral of intruige and paranoia when he suddenly gets caught in the system he'd been propping up.

Directed by former Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam ("Time Bandits", "Baron Munchausen", "12 Monkeys" etc) this is a typically surreal wonder with a deeply touching story and an ending like a smack in the face.

Like '1984' on anti-depressants, Orwell would have been proud, methinks.

Classic dystopia

Despite beginning to look a bit dated, Brazil is unquestionably one of the key films of the 80s. It has become a classic dystopia of industrial, bureaucratic society, up there with Kafka, Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell.

Like other Gilliam films, the conflict between reality and fantasy is central, but never has he pushed the relationship between the two so far out beyond the edge. Much of the film is played as a more surreal, more comical 1984, with a strong streak of fantastic whimsy. And to begin with the fantastic element is emphatically a form of escapism. But as the dreams (and nightmares) begin to converge with reality, the possibility of escape from the nightmarish real becomes a true and desperate question.

As often with Gilliam the pace can be a little slow, but that’s OK – it’s so visually inventive and attentive to detail. However, the finale, which collapses dreams and reality into the most compelling depiction of a mind disintegrating ever filmed, is a masterpiece, uniting in deranged form all the disparate visual elements.

The original US release was butchered right at the end, childishly attempting to remove the most disturbing implications of the story in order to maintain Hollywood’s own form of escapism. Brazil though is a story about escapism, not an example of it.

It is a crime that Gilliam was unable to finish his version of Don Quixote, the ur-text for all dreamers taking on reality. This one made it through (just). We should be grateful.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Mind-bendingly brilliant - genuine masterpiece

A tour de force, for all lovers of quality writing, stunning visuals, and brilliant acting. In a word "stunning".

Very much and intellectual film, that also works on its visuals and superbly paced out humour. A unique, compelling work of art, that surely inspired many filmmakers of today.

Brilliant, watch it, and rate it. This is a film you will never forget.

Awesomely good.

Ambition + Talent = Brazil

'Brazil' is an all-out assault on the senses, which isn't much of a surprise as it's directed by Terry Gilliam. What is surprising is that behind the eye-popping design of a future world gone wrong lies a fantastic script, full of hilarious scenes and bitterly satirical humour.

Jonathan Pryce plays an ordinary man trapped in a dystopian universe of choking bureaucracy, plastic surgery and desperate insurgency. All he has to comfort him are his dreams, beautifully-crafted vignettes in which he flies around in glitter-paint rescuing a mystery damsel in distress. The sneaky references to film noir, 'Casablanca' and 'The Battleship Potemkin' dotted throughout 'Brazil' remind us that we're all victims of escapism to some extent.

But it's the nightmare of the everyday world that 'Brazil' puts across so convincingly. Everything is exaggerated so as to lose all claims to logic: the importance of form-filling leads to a fear of all things printed, while the need to supply an increased workforce with decreasing materials leads to a hilariously surreal moment involving a single desk shared by two offices.

The brilliant cast, featuring everyone from Robert de Niro to Michael Palin, do a superb job of bringing the horrors to life; the cinematography, meanwhile, makes sure that our eyes are never given a moment's peace. The breathless chasing does become a bit too exhausting near the end, but never enough to cloud the fact that 'Brazil' is one of the greatest films ever made.

Better Than 90% of Hollywood's Mulch

Think of this film as Monty Python in 1984 and you're not far off, although to focus on Gilliam's involvement too much is to discredit the serious message of the film to some extent. The film deals with a society dominated by the Ministry of Information ('It takes 13% of GNP') where conformity and consumption are ruled over by millions of faceless workers.

If you think this film is boring or awful, go rent Elf or something; this is a film with a message, with humor and cynicism, and means just as much today as it did upon release.

Bra......zzzzzZZZZZZZ

Having watched lost in la Mancha about a Terry Gilliam film that didn't get made, and having found that tremendously tedious, we found ourselves wishing this one hadn't been made either. After an hour and a half we couldn't be bothered to watch the end.

Flawed Genius Bang On

I have to admit first off that I am a Gilliam fan - he is a film-making genius who sometimes struggles to get all his ideas to come together in a coherent narrative.

However, with Brazil he gets the whole package bang on. The film follows the adventures of anti-hero Sam Lowry who is a lone dreamer in a world where bureaucracy has gone mad. Great jet black humour throughout which is maintained right until the end.