Just before my senior
year in high school I kept coming across references to a relatively obscure,
yet influential movie from 1985 called Brazil. I didn’t know a lot about
it, but I knew that Terry Gilliam had directed it and that musicians I liked
and people I respected spoke highly of it. At the time, I had become familiar
with some of Gilliam’s work and I had enjoyed movies of his like The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Fisher King. However, none of
this prepared me for what I was about to see. Brazil bursts forth with
an unbridled visual creativity while telling a story of dystopian horror that
savors details of mundane beauty and absurdity. The summer I turned seventeen,
Brazil exploded my expectations of what a movie can be, affirmed my love of
art that surprises me, and reminded me of what we all stand to lose in a
technology-addled society that prizes conformity and obedience above all else. 
In the performance of a
lifetime, Jonathan Pryce combines a guileless charm with a sometimes frantic
physicality for the lead role of Sam Lowery, who is part everyman and part
Walter Mitty. In his job as a lowly records clerk, Sam discovers an error in
the system that sets in motion a series of events that takes him far from the
routine drudgery of his nondescript life up to that point. Veteran character
actor Ian Holm showcases his strong comic abilities with the role of Sam’s
inept and spineless superior in the records department, Mr. Kurtzmann. Michael
Palin (Gilliam’s Monty Python colleague) plays upon his intrinsic good-natured
amicability to deliver a devastating portrayal of Sam’s friend and professional
rival, Jack Lint, who specializes in the deceptively titled practice of
“information retrieval.” Best known for irreverent, matronly roles on TV shows
like Soap and Who’s the Boss?, Katherine Helmond brings charisma
and gusto to her depiction of Ida Lowery, Sam’s outlandish, vain, and
controlling mother. Sam’s path crosses with Jill Layton, a truck driver who
witnesses the results of the system’s error, and Sam begins to confuse her with
a gauzy, angelic figure who floats through his recurring dreams. As Jill, Kim
Greist injects an unorthodox, tense energy into what could otherwise remain a
thankless love interest role. One of the screenwriters’ best inventions in the
entire film is the character of Harry Tuttle, an anarchist heating engineer who
serves as the story’s valiant rogue and ignites within Sam a notion of
resistance. As Tuttle, Robert De Niro almost steals the show with a robust and
droll performance that endures as one of the most captivating, distinctive
supporting roles of his career. The cast also includes two memorable supporting
turns from longtime character actors who would both go on to much greater notoriety:
Bob Hoskins as a dubious Central Services agent and Jim Broadbent as the star
plastic surgeon of Sam’s mother’s social circle.
Terry Gilliam put
everything he had into making Brazil and because of this, it’s a movie
that rewards repeated viewings (I watched it twice in one day in preparation
for this post and to be honest, I kind of want to watch it again right now).
Working with playwright Tom Stoppard and actor Charles McKeown (who also plays
a minor adversary of Sam’s), Gilliam created a totalitarian culture tilted just
enough from our own reality that we can still laugh at the absurdity of it all.
This trio of writers had a field day with exploring the way euphemisms,
bureaucracy, and propaganda can define our relationships, values, and lives. Brazil
has inspired a lot of movies over the last thirty plus years, but I’ve never
found another one that comes close to reaching the same range of comedic heights
and emotional depths.
-
John
Parsell
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