Brazil

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Brazil

90% Liked It
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Brazil

Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins

Terry Gilliam's 1985 film is a surrealist nightmare of a low-level bureaucrat in a dismal world of the near future.

Id: 10906347

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Brazil Recent Reviews
  • rezpatriot
    December 2, 2009
    rezpatriot
    Brazil is one of my favourite movies of all time. Going into the top ten, because I see it as a si-fi. Its a Sci-Fi with credibility and honesty. Pure British and then Rober De Niro (what the frak? But god damn it works) . I'll be waiting for the big budget re-release.
  • SirPant
    August 27, 2009
    SirPant
    One of the greatest films ever made in my opinion and definitely Gilliam's best work.
  • gilbertgumphrey
    April 27, 2009
    gilbertgumphrey
    It's my personal opinion that Terry Gilliam is the worst filmmaker ever, in the history of time. A bold statement. And yes, I think he's worse than Uwe Boll, who's terrible but at least can admit to it; and yes, I think he's worse than Michael Bay, who's a terrible douchebag an...( read more)d host of countless shitty movies but at least knows how to make things go "boom". Terry Gilliam has no redeeming qualities. Everything he touches turns to shit. He can't make a single scene in any of his movies remotely visually appealing or enjoyable to watch - not only that, but he's a self-proclaimed, arrogant, conceited douche who really does think he's amazingly wonderful (as evidenced on the Tideland DVD, where he filmed himself before the movie started saying that many of us wouldn't like the film, but those of us with INTELLIGENCE will probably love it....he was saying all this BEFORE any of us had seen the film itself!!!). I hate him. I loathe him. All of his movies are so weird, so bizarre, so unrelentingly depressing and annoying and infuriating and so aesthetically ugly and unpleasant that no enjoyment or entertainment can be derived from any of them. Hell, he even managed to ruin Monty Python with his insipid animations and that long 20 minute sketch about the old man pirates in Meaning of Life, which went on for so long without any point or punchline I actually stopped watching the movie as soon as the sketch was done.

    Wow. That's a lot of bitching, and without having even yet mentioned the film I'm reviewing. But there's not a frame of this film that went by where I wasn't reminded by Terry Gilliam of how great Terry Gilliam is. He shoots everything with wide angle lenses, distorting the shots. He never uses deep focus, so usually everything in the frame is seen vividly, which isn't easy on the eyes. His camera usually moves in unpleasantly for closeups, then shakily draws back, then goes back in again, over and over. Simply put - he's never once filmed anything I thought was impressive or halfway decent (the overall movie of 12 Monkeys was pretty good, admittedly, but even then that was because the acting and screenplay were so strong they almost overpowered Gilliam's shitty directing...as hard as he tried). This visual approach is used throughout Brazil, which I believe was his breakout film. A sad indicator of things to come.

    Let it be said that the movie is rife with ideas. An endless amount of ideas, really. Brazil is a science fiction epic, set in a futuristic London I believe (no idea where the title of the movie came from). But all of these ideas are completely without a unifying purpose, or theme, or need, or point. They're just ideas for the sake of being ideas. Stuff like the satirical attacks on cosmetic surgery and the powerful police state are all pointed and interesting, sure, but what's the context? Why have them in there? Because Gilliam thought they were funny, I guess, or because he figured he was being much more clever than he really is. In the whole agonizingly long 2.5 hours of this movie, I probably only enjoyed myself for about 5 minutes (there is one clever segment, where Gilliam pays homage to the Odessa Steps sequence of Battleship Potemkin....but even then, Brian De Palma did it better in The Untouchables).

    I don't want to talk about the story, because I could hardly follow it. I don't want to talk anymore about the technical stuff, because Gilliam so desperately ruined almost all of it for me (even though I must admit the set design is incredible). I really don't want to mention the acting, especially considering that Robert fucking De Niro is even in the movie, for about 6 minutes. What I want to mention is this - why? Why tell this story, this way? This large amount of sci-fi ideas, and indeed many of them are with merit and interest, deserved a filmmaker with conviction, someone who would attempt to make a great film using a story, characters, and dialogue that is worth watching - not just endlessly unfunny characters acting so completely "British" and flipping a big middle finger in the face of logic or reason. You can say it all "means something", or that it's all "metaphorically significant", but to me, when I watch a movie, I want to either be educated or entertained, and this film did neither.

    So that's my rant on Brazil, I guess. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that I wasted so many hours of my life watching this shit. I'm frustrated that Terry Gilliam still gets work, even after destroying everything he touches from Brazil to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the aforementioned, so-bad-I-couldn't-even-finish-it Tideland. I'm frustrated how popular this movie was and is, how most critics loved it, and how people still seem to think it's some sort of landmark in science fiction. But it isn't. There isn't a single solitary idea or theme (well, except maybe the obsessive attention to duct work) that hadn't already been done, far better, in movies like Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, and Metropolis. The story rambles on forever, the plot is damn near incomprehensible, every scene is littered with so many annoyances, contrivances, and arrogant waving-of-the-arms by Gilliam that it gave me a headache. And then after putting us through all this, the ending decides to throw everything concievable even in this sci-fi world out the window by giving us guys being eaten by garbage and escapes through coffins (I know the very last scene explains all this, but it's so pointlessly pessimistic that I just choose to ignore it). I have given a name to my pain, Bob, and it is Terry Gilliam.

    Final Note: This is also the first time I've ever actually had to stop a movie, go to the DVD Chapters menu, and see how many chapters were left before continuing my agony and finishing the film. If there had been more than a couple chapters left, I probably would've given up.
  • ohagankieran
    April 11, 2009
    ohagankieran
    Terry Gilliam has always been a unique director - a man with a vision determined to let nothing get in the way of his quest to make movies the way he wants to. 'Brazil' is his greatest achievement (though many of his other films come close) and brings a breathtaking Orwellian fut...( read more)ure society to life on the screen. Featuring a fantastically creepy performance from Mr Nice-Guy Mr. Michael Palin and a memorable somewhat low-key performance from Robert DeNiro 'Brazil' is not to be missed. Recut by the studios in a shocking attempt at making the film more upbeat, this feels HAS to be seen in this, the original version. Over twenty years old but as fresh and original as the day it was released...
  • SarahG1988
    April 11, 2009
    SarahG1988
    Photobucket




    The film centers on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a young ...( read more)man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines.

    Review coming soon...
  • zomgmouse
    January 1, 2010
    zomgmouse
    Extremely imaginative and darkly hilarious.
  • OldKentuckyShark
    December 21, 2009
    OldKentuckyShark
    Gilliam's best work offers us a vision of the future that's half George Orwell and half Chuck Jones. It's not only one of the best films ever made, but it's also the best Christmas movie ever made. It's hard for me to even find the words to describe how great this movie is, but...( read more) I'll try. Here goes nothin'. I've been a fan of Gilliam for as long as I can remember, even before I knew who he was. I was raised on TIME BANDITS and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHHAUSEN. I first became aware of BRAZIL thanks to a preview on a movie that I've long since forgotten, and I had to see it. Unfortunately, it took a lot longer than I would have liked (say about 15 years longer). Do you know how hype can sometimes ruin a movie? You'll hear about how great something is for a long time and then when you finally see it you think to yourself, "What's the big deal?". Well this is a film that not only lives up to the hype but surpasses it. To me, this movie is the definition of a perfect movie. It's funny, it's frightening, it's beautiful, it's eternally relevant, and it's uncompromising. Gilliam took on Hollywood with this one by releasing his uncut version of the film behind the studio's back, and in doing so he proved something that should have been obvious to everybody. What he proved was that studio execs have absolutely no place in the creative side of film making. They're nothing but money men with no sense of imagination whatsoever.
  • ramiraff
    December 14, 2009
    ramiraff
    Terry Gilliam has remarked that Brazil is not a movie about the future, but a film fixed in the now. Unfortunately that grows more and more true each day as civil liberties are ripped away from us as we blissfully turn the other way. Despite it all though this film has a happy ...( read more)ending. The most depressing ending ever captured on film, but I insist it can be argued as happy.
  • jonnydaddy
    December 13, 2009
    jonnydaddy
    I dont know what to think of this film. I finished it so that says something. It was very scattered I think.
  • UsernameMissing
    November 29, 2009
    UsernameMissing
    I love satire in general and i loved this one.It is sharp funny and meaningful.i think it combines everything that really sucks in the world today,at least most parts of it,and presents it in a most amusing way that is not extremely exaggerated like todays so called "parodies'. D...( read more)efinitely a movie on its own!
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