Brazil (1985)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 142m
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert de Niro, Michael Palin, Kim Greist, Katherine Helmond, Peter Vaughan
Synopsis:
In a future dominated by red tape a humble clerk dreams of being a superhero, but his life changes dramatically when a bureaucratic error brings him face to face with his Dulcinea.
Review:
A blend of comedy and nightmare ideally suited to this director-animator, which succeeds because of the single-minded pursuit of its theme of the individual vs the state (or the cock-up in the system, plumbing or otherwise; the ghost in the machine, to use the script's own words). A visual feast, technically brilliant, it could be seen as another adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four for the titular year, though one shot through with the director's peculiar fads and obsessions: ducts, Don Quixote and film history (Battleship Potemkin). Nodding at its lineage from Metropolis to Alphaville and Fahrenheit 451, it set the bar high for many a dystopian thriller to come: Dark City, Equilibrium, Equals, all have characters, wardrobe and production design influenced by Brazil. True, it does go on a bit, and probably could have done with trimming the shared office desk and the restaurant sketch with their echoes of Python, but at its best, with the Ian Richardson-led sycophants, the erupting skyscrapers and the cooling tower rescue, it shows the crazed audacity and sheer genius of Gilliam's imagination.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 142m
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert de Niro, Michael Palin, Kim Greist, Katherine Helmond, Peter Vaughan
Synopsis:
In a future dominated by red tape a humble clerk dreams of being a superhero, but his life changes dramatically when a bureaucratic error brings him face to face with his Dulcinea.
Review:
A blend of comedy and nightmare ideally suited to this director-animator, which succeeds because of the single-minded pursuit of its theme of the individual vs the state (or the cock-up in the system, plumbing or otherwise; the ghost in the machine, to use the script's own words). A visual feast, technically brilliant, it could be seen as another adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four for the titular year, though one shot through with the director's peculiar fads and obsessions: ducts, Don Quixote and film history (Battleship Potemkin). Nodding at its lineage from Metropolis to Alphaville and Fahrenheit 451, it set the bar high for many a dystopian thriller to come: Dark City, Equilibrium, Equals, all have characters, wardrobe and production design influenced by Brazil. True, it does go on a bit, and probably could have done with trimming the shared office desk and the restaurant sketch with their echoes of Python, but at its best, with the Ian Richardson-led sycophants, the erupting skyscrapers and the cooling tower rescue, it shows the crazed audacity and sheer genius of Gilliam's imagination.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col 142m
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert de Niro, Michael Palin, Kim Greist, Katherine Helmond, Peter Vaughan
Synopsis:
In a future dominated by red tape a humble clerk dreams of being a superhero, but his life changes dramatically when a bureaucratic error brings him face to face with his Dulcinea.
Review:
A blend of comedy and nightmare ideally suited to this director-animator, which succeeds because of the single-minded pursuit of its theme of the individual vs the state (or the cock-up in the system, plumbing or otherwise; the ghost in the machine, to use the script's own words). A visual feast, technically brilliant, it could be seen as another adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four for the titular year, though one shot through with the director's peculiar fads and obsessions: ducts, Don Quixote and film history (Battleship Potemkin). Nodding at its lineage from Metropolis to Alphaville and Fahrenheit 451, it set the bar high for many a dystopian thriller to come: Dark City, Equilibrium, Equals, all have characters, wardrobe and production design influenced by Brazil. True, it does go on a bit, and probably could have done with trimming the shared office desk and the restaurant sketch with their echoes of Python, but at its best, with the Ian Richardson-led sycophants, the erupting skyscrapers and the cooling tower rescue, it shows the crazed audacity and sheer genius of Gilliam's imagination.