Brazil (1985) [VHS]

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.

Weird but excellent film, been one of my favourites for years and was looking forward to the blu-ray release.

However, what is the point of blu-rays when compared to DVDs? Ah, yes, superior visuals and sound quality, or at least supposedly.

Visually, the transfer is pretty good for a 25+ year old film (though no great improvement over an upscaled DVD).

Audio is another matter. This is standard 2.0 Dolby Digital and compares to the USA multi-region release that is DTS-HD Master and which sounds much better than the UK version (yes, I know it's sad, but I did buy the US version after my disappointment with the UK version).

So, Fox, why is it that you think the UK should put up with inferior sound quality compared to the US edition? Was it really impossible to use the same master? And again, what is the point in blu-ray if the production companies bundle the disc with a sound format that is no better than DVD (actually, worse, my old Criterion edition at least has 2.1 Dolby Digital - well, I did say it was one of my favourite films...).

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.