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Amazon.co.uk Review
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unravelling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labelled as a miscreant.
The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. --Jim Emerson
Amazon.co.uk Review
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--Brazil is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. In fact it was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek government clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. It's not a software bug but a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets squashed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unravelling this bureaucratic tangle, he himself winds up labelled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. --Jim Emerson
On the DVD: Brazil comes to DVD in a welcome anamorphic print of the full director's cut--here running some 136 minutes. Disappointingly the only extra feature is the 30-minute making-of documentary "What Is Brazil?", which consists of on-set and behind-the-scenes interviews. There's nothing about the film's controversial release history (covered so comprehensively on the North American Criterion Collection release), nor is Gilliam's illuminating, irreverent directorial commentary anywhere to be found. The only other extra here is the ubiquitous theatrical trailer. A welcome release of a real classic, then, but something of a missed opportunity. --Mark Walker
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A film that seems as new now as it did 25 years ago,
By
This review is from: Brazil [1985] [DVD] (DVD)
It's not often that you sit down to watch a film first released a quarter of a century ago and feels like you are watching one that could have been released yesterday, but such was my experience with Terry Gilliam's Brazil.The nightmare future it paints seems as apposite now as it did in the 1990s - being one based on suffocating bureaucracy, widespread and intrusive government surveillance and a paranoid response to terrorist attacks. The future world is not only beautifully designed, down to numerous small details, but by picking a visual style that is '1930s modern' (sophisticated machinery but with a touch of the pre-electronic era with manual typewriter keyboards and compressed air driven communication systems), Gilliam ensured that the look would not date. The targets of his caricatures have also stood the test of time, whether it's the idea of unhelpful telephone support lines (with the calls to Central Services to fix a plumbing problem resulting in the same sort of frustrating response that - badly - automated phone systems do today) or the stifling grip of paperwork and a bureaucracy that concentrates on ensuring all the paperwork is in order (tick-box culture, anyone?). The way bureaucrats in the film reduce a woman's fear that her wife has died to a matter of complaint forms and receipts immediately chimes and brings to mind current events such as the way in which Haringey Council responded to its failure to protect Baby P from death by talking about how good its paperwork and procedures were. The scenes of suspected terrorists being arrested, trussed up and bundled away likewise bring to mind pictures of Guantanamo Bay, orange jump suits and all. And in these post-credit crunch times the line, "If you hold out [confessing] too long it could jerpordise your credit rating" sounds all too current. But perhaps my favourite touch are the government posters saying "Don't suspect a friend. Report him". A film-maker wishing to satirise current governments couldn't do much better. The plot itself isn't up to much. It is pretty standard fare for this sort of dystopian future film. In its favour is the fact that the plot is 25 years old; the intervening years and films with similar plots make Brazil's plot seem more formulaic than it would have at the time. Even so, the plot is not the reason to watch the film - particular if you don't like a predictable romantic interlude set in a bleak future. Instead, it is the visual richness and the overall picture of society it is satirising that make the film. Well worth getting and watching.
34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
dark fairytale,
This review is from: Brazil [1985] [DVD] (DVD)
Where on earth do you start when you try describing Brazil? Terry Gilliam does a spectacular job portraying a dark fantasy world where society is taken over by a sinister bureaucracy which creates the nightmare scenario where individuals don't know who to trust or where to turn for help. What makes Brazil particularly uncomfortable and even prophetic, is that we can identify with the leading character (played by Johnathon Price) and his lonely plight into a dystopian hell. For anyone who has been enraged by being fobbed off by something like an electronic answering service in a bank, multiply Price's anguish by ten. He lives in an inhuman world which has nothing left other than red tape and faceless autocrats. Gilliam proves that you don't need any of the tactics employed by the horror genre to a create a terrifying and riveting scenario.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a dark satire on bureaucracy gone mad,
By okriuk@yahoo.co.uk (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Brazil (1985) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Imagine something darker and more miserable than Bladerunner but with laughs - and you'll find yourself in Brazil. It is this very paradox which makes this film so fascinating yet disturbing at the same time. I have seen it many times and yet it still holds its magic. What makes it so engrossing for me is the extremes to which the viewer is taken - from Michael Palin's evil torturer having spasms as he "cleans up" after another victim (while wearing a mask that makes him look like child) to the laugh-out-loud scene when one of his daughters tells Pryce's cringingly embarrassed Sam Lowry "I can see your willy!" Then there are the comic - yet still disturbing - turns from Bob Hoskins as a violent and threatening "official" maintenance engineer and Katherine Helmond as Sam's plastic surgery obsessed mother. (Seeing her doctor literally "pull" her face in different directions is still hilarious) One moment you're laughing out loud, the next you're stunned into shocked silence. Brilliant. One final similie - imagine being on a rollercaster ride. Some bits are scary, some bits are thrilling, some bits are terrifying. But as soon as you come to the end you want to do it all over again. This particular rollercoaster ride is called "Brazil".
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