Brazil - Page 2

"Fantasy" in a completely different sense. The movie is fantastical; wishing your parents would go away is an immature, youthful desire. The things that happen in a fantastical narrative are not necessarily fulfillments of your desires. I don't think Kevin's parents blowing up is an unqualified positive thing, and I don't think Sam's retreat into dreamland is an unqualified positive thing. Gilliam doesn't strike me as a Pollyanna.

This thought just occurred to me in the shower this morning (don't laugh, it's where I do some of my best thinking) -- the "Imagination Trilogy" isn't just about the dreamer as child, man, and old man, it's about the maturation of imagination. In Time Bandits, imagination is this wild, random thing, and Kevin isn't completely in control of it, as evidenced by it coming back to destroy his parents. In Brazil, Sam is in control of his imagination, but he uses it for purely selfish reasons -- for his own escape. By the time we reach Munchausen, the Baron's tale-spinning is used to save the town from the Turks. Imagination has gone from being a childish diversion to something truly capable of changing the world.

Excellent point. It's interesting because the first film finds the child dreaming about real heroes from literature, the second one finds the middle-aged man casting himself as a hero in his dreams but being unable to actualize them socially, and the final film finds the old man able to use his dreams for good. I think that's Gilliam's point about making art and making films and why it's so important to do something with your dreams and not simply think about them a lot, hoping they're just going to come true because you want them to.

That doesn't mean he's making judgments against the younger dreamers, though. It takes age and experience to be able to use your dreams effectively.

Thanks for the discussion, guys and gals. It's been a while since I've seen this, so I'm really looking forward to breaking out with it tonight once I get back from El Segundo.

I really like Richard's point. I wish I had a whole hell of a lot to add onto it, but it's a very astute observation. The trilogy, taken as a whole, really does show the development of imagination throughout the span of a person's life.

You know what, I'm going to watch all three movies together. Now that we've diverged entirely from Brazil, it occurs to me I've never done that-- taken the entire trilogy in at one time. And it only makes sense if we're discussing imagination as a recurring theme throughout the three pictures.

It'll certainly be an enhanced experience at the very least.

The sheer amount of visual imagination on display in this film is quite amazing, the film reads like Dennis Potter filtered through George Orwell. I found it interesting that Sam's dreams of being a knight in shining armor were reflected in reality, every step he took created the reality he was looking for, Jill dressed in white, just like his dream, the samurai warrior in the form of a guard, Jack in the baby mask, his reality was mirroring his dreams, the film also contains one of the greatest fakeout endings ever committed to film.

This film is a surreal pitch black comedy, the fact that one man is condemned to death due to a beauracratic bungling pretty much says it all.

Watched this recently to show a friend who had never seen it. First time I had seen it in years. It's such a monumental triumph of artistry and imagination that it utterly staggers me. We simply wouldn't see anything like this anymore. This thing is so packed with detail and little touches of madness and beauty it's just incredible.
Read an interview with Gilliam once in which he mentioned Spielberg saw an early version of this and totally ripped off the sequence of Sam waking up in his automated apartment and used it in Back to the Future for the Marty McFly introduction at the beginning of he film which I thought was kinda interesting.

I have always thought that Gilliam frowned upon Sam, that Sam isn't the hero of the story by any stretch of the imagination. He only ever acts for selfish reasons; he knows full well how the bureaucracy works and how to get around it for his own needs but never once actually helps anyone. My reading of the ending was that he got what he deserved. Some comment that it's about the only way you can escape such a huge pointless system is to go mad but Sam's complacency and selfish behavior led him directly to his own demise. Michael Palin is great in this; the ultimate bad guy in some respects. Tortures a close friend simply because it's his job to do so.
Also shitty I never saw this on the big screen. So very, very shitty.

Would also like to second (or third?) the Tideland like. I want to say "love" but it's not really that loveable so I'll settle with like.

I love Palin's "We've always been close. Well, until this blows over, stay away from me." It's said with such sincerity and good cheer, yet he's such a bastard. And when he gets mad at Sam for getting in trouble so that he has to torture him. If all you know of Palin is Python, this performance really catches you by surprise.

This was on one of the pay channels the other day, and I toyed around with the idea of Harry Tuttle not being real throughout the film, that he's this romanticized ideal that Sam so desperately wants to exist in this dreary world he conjures him up. Doesn't really hold up though, too much interaction, but for a while, it seemed possible.

I know quite a few people who hold that up actually and watched it in the recent go around keeping that in mind but yeah, it's not there at all.
Yeah that cheery, chirpy delivery of "stay away from me Sam" is fantastic. It's like Gilliams ultimate statement on British Over-Politeness.
Love that Pryce was cast as the sniveling bureaucrat in Munchausen just after this. Gold.

I've also seen debate on when the film switches to Sam's imagination. Usually people say it's when the police bust in on him and Jill and he wakes up in the interrogation chamber. But some claim it starts all the way back when he's knocked out in the department store trying to keep Jill from being arrested after the bombing. And that everything with him "erasing" Jill from the database and coming home to her in the wig is his imagination as well.

Really? I thought it was pretty clear he lost it when Tuttle and co rescue him from being Tortured; he flips out the moment they go Guantanamo on him. Everything after is fantasy other than the "We've lost him" moment.

The reasoning I've heard is that Sam wouldn't have gotten away with standing up to the policeman in the store. He's at the scene of a terrorist bombing trying to prevent an officer from arresting a suspect. So when he's knocked out, everything from him waking up in the paddy wagon on is taking place in his imagination. I don't buy it -- why would he imagine winning (erasing Jill) then losing (being captured) then winning again? But some people I know who have seen the film insist that's what they see.

Given the heroism of his other dreams, I don't see why he'd imagine himself facing Palin in the torture chamber. That doesn't work.

I find Kim Greist strangely attractive, or maybe I just find her attractive non-stop.

I think taking the promotion was the worst decision he made, everything seemed to just fall apart once he did that, he actually seemed content with his life up until that point, to a certain degree.

Bob Deniro gives a wonderfully comic performance, considering he's only in the movie in a support role.

It's really cool to spot all the familiar british actors of the day in this film, Gordon Kaye, Nigel Planer, Bob Hoskins etc

And Jim Broadbent.

This movie is probably the most upsetting movie I've ever seen, second only to Apocalypse Now. There's never been a film that sums up the banality of evil like this one.  Every frame is so cluttered, every wide-angle shot is sickening, it's heartless world of bureaucracy so complete and fully formed (the first 10 minutes of this film are the most complete world-building of any film I've ever seen) it almost kills the joy of watching the thing. What gets me is how effortlessly Gilliam is able to skewer everything, from fast food to plastic surgery, with such quick moments. The picture of the food next to the shapeless colorless mush is perfect.

 

I'd say my one complaint with the film is that at 141 minutes (for the Final Cut), it feels about a reel too long.