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Brazil
(1985, UK)
In Terry Gilliam's eccentric, offbeat, satirical ultra-dark
comedy - a hybrid work, combining science-fiction, despairing ultra-black
comedy and fantasy. It told
about an oppressive and repressive, polluted, decaying future dystopian
world of conformity, bureaucracy and Big Brother totalitarianism
in a terrorist-threatened Londonesque metropolis:
- the inventive opening scene ("Somewhere in
the 20th Century") envisioning the stylized world of an alternative
future with ductworks advertised on television by a slick salesman
and a chorus: ("Central Services. We do the work, you do the
pleasure. Hi, there. I want to talk to you about ducts. Do your
ducts seem old-fashioned, out-of-date? Central Services' new duct
designs are now available in hundreds of different colors to suit
your individual tastes. Hurry now, while stocks last, to your nearest
Central Services showroom. Designer colors to suit your demanding
taste") - interrupted by a violent explosion
- the main character was mild-mannered, low-ranking,
bureaucratic civil servant Everyman Sam Lowry
(Jonathan Pryce) who worked in the dull regulatory Ministry of
Information (MOI), jammed with paperwork and filled with endless
pneumatic tubes and ill-functioning equipment
- anti-terrorists, on Christmas Eve, 'dropped
in' through the ceiling into the apartment of the
innocent Archibald Buttle family, to falsely accuse and brutally assault
them; this invasion was all due to
a dead beetle - causing a print-out on an arrest record to read
Buttle instead of Tuttle - the real terrorist: a renegade ("free-lance")
maintenance man Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (Robert DeNiro); it was a perfect example
of technological-automation gone wacky and oppressive bureaucratic
muddling in the society's Ministry of Information, exemplified by this
exchange afterwards: ("That
is your receipt for your husband, thank you, and this is my receipt
for your receipt"); Archibald Buttle was wrongly arrested and
killed due to the mix-up
- unexpectedly, free-lance repairman Harry Tuttle arrived
to fix Sam's AC ducts, and explained how he hated paper-work: ("I
couldn't stand the paperwork. Listen, this whole system of yours
could be on fire, and I couldn't even turn on a kitchen tap without
filling out a 27B-stroke6. Bloody paperwork... I came into this game
for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light. Get in,
get out, wherever there's trouble. A man alone. Now, they've got
the whole country sectioned off. Can't make a move without a form")
- Lowry investigated the case of mistaken identity (and
the wrongful arrest and death of Buttle) and attempted to unravel
it, by imagining or fantasizing himself as a lone heroic, silver-winged
warrior knight-savior combating technological threats of the Machine
Age
- Sam experienced recurring dreams
of soaring as a superhero with metal mechanical wings toward a mysterious
doppelganger (Kim Greist) in the clouds - in real-life, a tough truck
driver named Jill Layton (also Griest); he imagined rescuing-saving
her from a giant, Samurai warrior
- Jill's desire to help Mrs. Buttle sort out the error
and find the real Mr. Buttle caused her to become regarded as a suspected
terrorist and political dissident
- in an alley - Sam fantasized he was battling good
and evil, in the form of baby-faced mutants and a giant
Samurai Warrior, comprised of bureaucratic paraphernalia
- the grotesque plastic surgery of Sam's narcissistic,
high-ranking socialite mother Ida (Katherine Helmond), and another
face-disfigured, bandaged client Mrs. Shirley Terrain (Barbara Hicks)
who told Sam: ("My complication had a little complication, but
Dr. Chapman says I'll soon be up and bounding about like a young
gazelle"); both women were in a futile attempt to escape the
"ravages of time" and stay young
- the scene of the terrorist bombing in a high-class
restaurant as patrons continued to consume their meals in the midst
of dead bodies
- in his new cramped office in the Ministry of Information
Retrieval, Sam's battle with his moving desk
- the self-deluded Sam became the subject of study
by the totalitarian regime. His vain efforts to clear Jill's name
ended when he was wrongly aligned with the rebellion, and his friend-turned-sinister
MOI official Jack Lint (Michael Palin) arrested him for treason
- in the downbeat conclusion, Sam was
placed in confined detainment and was strapped in a torture
chair in the middle of a circular platform within a domed building
to be questioned and tortured by two torture agents as the spritely
tune Brazil played;
a white-coated technician wearing a pock-marked, smiling baby mask
approached to administer torture - Sam recognized him as his
friend-turned-sinister MOI official Jack Lint (Michael Palin), accompanied
by Deputy Minister of Information Mr. Helpmann (Peter Vaughan)
- meanwhile, Sam fantasized that he was being rescued
by commandos led by Tuttle, and escaping and reuniting with Jill
as they drove away from the city to a pastoral setting; however,
his ideal perfect and illusory world and happy ending was revealed
to be a self-deluding fantasy of wishful thinking - the green vista
of a pastoral backdrop free of societal restrictions where he had
escaped was covered over, and he was back in the domed torture chamber
- the film's final lines came at the moment of his demise:
(Mr. Helpmann: "He's got away from us, Jack."
Jack Lint: "Afraid you're right, Mr. Helpmann. He's gone")
- the final view of Sam as he
was dying revealed that he was humming the film's theme song to
himself (Ary Barroso's "Aquarela
do Brasil" or "Brazil") -
insanely lost in his inner world
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Bureaucratic Error: Buttle, not Tuttle
Terrorist Tuttle (Robert De Niro)
Sam's Battle With Giant Samurai
Grotesque Plastic Surgeries
Restaurant Terrorist Bombing
Sam's Battle with His Desk in Cramped Office
Tuttle's Dream-Rescue of Sam
Sam's Dream of Escaping with Jill
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