‘Brazil’ by Terry Gilliam is a terrifying dystopian story with a similar premise to George Orwell’s 1984, produced in 1985. The film is a terrifying reminder of what happens when a government gets too powerful, with a war on terror, that isn’t really what it seems. The film, Brazil is set somewhere in the 20th century and surprisingly is not set in Brazil as the title insinuates, but is instead set in Europe. The film follows a young man named Sam Lowry's (Jonathyn Pryce) mundane life as he works down in information retrieval, helping his struggling boss Mr Kurtzmann (Ian Holm) while in his dreams he is a winged warrior fighting evil and saving damsels in distress. His life is turned upside down upon the meeting of a wanted ‘terrorist’ by the name of Buttle, and the damsel of distress in his dream, in reality a strong-willed woman named Jill (Kim Greist), trying to right a wrong, when her neighbor is mistakenly killed for terrorist activity due to a clerical error. From there things get crazier and crazier, as he dodges and weaves from the industry he used to work for. In summary, “It’s about the impossibility of escaping from reality,” as told by Terry Gilliam.
The film uses many clever techniques and an interestingly designed world with clever props, such as old technology paired with new (typewriters with really advanced settings). And despite the dark and gritty theme of the film, the director Terry Gilliam, former part of Monty python manages to thread in many clever bits of satirical and dark humor. Paired with this, the leading actor Jonathan Pryce and the script writer Tom Stoppard both bring the film to life, with surreal and bizarre acting, paired with Tom Stoppard’s witty and smart lines.
The film was created by Terry Gilliam in 1985, after being influenced by the book 1984 (which he admitted to have never read) which had a very similar premise. Many titles floated around while the film was being produced such as ‘The Ministry’, ‘The Ministry of Torture’ and ‘1984 ½’ before they finally settled on the title Brazil, based on the famous Brazilian song ‘Aquarela do Brasil’ by Ary Barroso played throughout the film. Terry Gilliam said in an interview, “The film originally began down Port Talbot in Wales, and Port Talbot is a steel town, and the beach is absolutely black from coal dust… and they’re sitting there at sunset and like I just had this image of this guy sitting on this beach looking at the sunset with a radio and picking up strange music like brazil’s Latin American stuff.”
Not only does the film contain clever writing and an interesting story line, the cinematography also helps convey and reinforces the many ideas of the film, with clever and interesting angle shots. Take for example one of the key themes of the film, the deception of the government, and how despite the horrible condition of the world, the Government still tries to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and make the world seem wonderful, for example the shot where Jill and Sam are driving down a road, and both sides of the road are surrounded with beautiful billboards, before the camera pans out to show a dry arid wasteland devoid of all life
There are many other examples of this such as when the old man is looking down at the factory. At first it seems as if a giant person is staring down upon a big beautiful factory, before the camera zooms out to show it is merely a model on a dirty sidewalk.
Another common theme showed throughout the film, is the individualist against the hive mind, where everyone agrees with the government and the few who don't, are exiled as terrorists, this is clear through many shots of the film such as the billboard that has the words ‘Happiness — we’re all in this together’ which is similar to many of the messages spread by the government in 1984,
This is also shown through many of the conversations and the workplace sam has to work in when promoted. Everybody is left to a small room completely surrounded by concrete walls, except for the desk which is shared between two rooms. This is perfectly conveyed in a birds eye view shot from above in sam’s office.
Another prop used very well to convey messages in ‘Brazil’ are the masks. in Sam’s dream’s the monsters all wear baby masks, horrible creatures hiding behind mask’s of innocence. Also when Jack Lint is interrogating Sam, he also wheres a baby mask. This could possibly be a sort of symbolism of how they are pretending to be innocent like a baby while they do horrible things behind the scenes.
This symbolism is also shown in Sam’s dream when he is fighting the samurai. The Samurai is a big, hulking, leviathan like machine (representing the technology of the world), which almost overpowers sam. However, when Sam takes the mask off the Samurai he is met with his own face. This nods to the idea that Sam is involved in the growth of the very technology that he is fighting, and in the end he is merely a cog in the wheel of society.
In Summary, Brazil is a story similar to 1984, which shows what can happen when a government becomes too powerful
Sources:
Tboake.com. (2019). Brazil Questions 2008. [online] Available at: https://www.tboake.com/443-brazil-f2008.html [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].
Matthews, J. (2019). Brazil. [online] The Criterion Collection. Available at: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil [Accessed 16 Jun. 2019].
Cinephilia & Beyond. (2019). Duct Soup: The Daffy, Dystopian Design Nightmare of Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’ • Cinephilia & Beyond. [online] Available at: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/duct-soup-the-daffy-dystopian-design-nightmare-of-terry-gilliams-brazil/ [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].
IMDb. (2019). Brazil (1985) — IMDb. [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ [Accessed 17 Jun. 2019].
