 Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a really complex movie that I could talk about for hours. It came out in 1985 when I was in college and I thought it was the greatest movie I had ever seen to that point and in a lot of ways I still feel like it's one of the greatest films. It certainly regarded as one of the great films of the late 20th century. At the time I made Friends of Mine go see it with me. But I hadn't seen it in many years, maybe 20 years. I've owned DVDs of it and laser discs of it but I've never I've never sat down and watched them. And I had the feeling that my ideas about it would have changed since then and I was right. It's basically Terry Gilliam's retelling of 1984 which I've discussed at length recently on this channel. In fact the the guy who introduced the film at this local cinema called Clinton Street Theater reminded us that the original title of the film was 1984 and a half. I feel though that it takes place in a world that's on its way to the world of 1984. Not quite there but most of the way. It's definitely a crushing bureaucratic dystopia fascist. The real charm, the real quirk of the film that everyone will remember. The technology of Gilliam's world is stuck in the 1930s basically. They're accomplishing the computer power and the bureaucracy that comes from this computer power that you would expect of the 1980s with technology of the 1930s. Vacuum tubes, sending letters, paperwork back and forth to each other in vacuum tubes, watching a tiny little cathode ray tube televisions. It's very impressive to see. It's astonishing in its scope and its complexity. It's extremely complex. There are basically everything in the film is foreshadowing something. Every little detail in the script, in the dialogue, in the sets, in things going on in the backgrounds of minor characters all come back around. They're all meaningful. It's the story of a man who's approaching middle age who comes from an influential family so he's highly placed in the bureaucracy. He's refusing to accept promotions into higher levels of the bureaucracy where he would basically become police, CIA. There's a scene where he meets an old family friend where he's going through the lineup for security at his building who played by Michael Palin who's brilliant in the film by the way who says to him, look you'll never be noticed where you are and he says yes isn't it wonderful? He wants to stay where he is. He believes himself to be happy where he is when really he's just afraid of sticking his head up because you know the the nail that sticks up will be hammered. When I saw it when I was younger I interpreted it as the story of an ordinary everyman who is awakened to the realities of the dystopia that he's become a part of and attempts to disrupt it and escape from it. That's where my ideas about it have changed and I'll get to that later. The film includes some of the most brilliant satire of bureaucracy and government. There's a scene where he has accepted a promotion to information retrieval is called and he enters the building and it's basically a giant empty marble foyer with one security man sitting at a desk at the far end. There's no security lineup, there's nothing. And he says don't you want to frisk me? And the guy says no sir. And he says do you want to see my identification? The guy says no need sir. And he says but I could be anybody and he says no you couldn't sir. Just that one little exchange contains so much information about the nature of this film and about the nature of the world that we live in. As I mentioned the cameo by Michael Palin. There's a tremendous performance by Ian Holm. There are a couple of truly unforgettable cameos by Robert De Niro and by Bob Hoskins. Are you telling me that this is illegal? Well yes and no. Central service. Central services. Oh yes. You rank sir. You rank sir. Trouble with your air conditioning sir. Whatever you think of this film you will never forget those scenes. Now here's where my ideas about the film have changed and where I think it has problems. This is as I said before this is Terry Gilliam's retelling of 1984. And in the book 1984 and also in the book We by the Russian author whose name I forget who we discussed it a bit on the 32nd half hour with Becky. The crime that these men that the protagonist commit the thing that really gets them condemned by the state is having a relationship basically falling in love with a woman that they're not approved to have a relationship with. Gilliam unfortunately chooses to reinterpret this two way relationship from the original stories as a fantasy that this guy has. He has this very rich fantasy life every night he dreams about flying and that's where the title of the film Brazil comes from. By the way the word Brazil has nothing to do with the the nation of Brazil. It's a reference to a song that's about it has lyrics about how someday we'll escape to Brazil and the nation the far away world of Brazil is presented as like a fantasy where we can get away. The melody of the song Brazil plays throughout the score. The score of this film again it's another one of the most brilliant things about this film. There's so much about this film that's brilliant. This guy is fantasizing about a being a hero and rescuing this fantasy woman. He tends to get lost in his fantasies and that ultimately comes up with a problem of of him not being able to distinguish fantasy from reality and we the viewers at a certain point can't tell what we're seeing or are we seeing something that's supposed to be his fantasy or is it reality and it leads up to one of the most brilliant endings in film history. I keep using the word brilliant there's so much about this film that's brilliant. The thing that isn't though Sam Lowry that's his name. He is content to stay where he is in the bureaucracy until he sees a young woman one day and she becomes the object of his fantasy. He chooses to take the promotion and he uses his newly appointed government access basically to stalk her and so these days I tend to interpret the story as not so much about an everyman who becomes awakened to the realities of his world it's about a creep who abuses his government position to stalk a woman. One thing that I never accepted even even in previous years about the film was that she would once they finally do meet that she would accept him ever much less sleep with him and and today I have so many problems with just that one thing that Gilliam chose to do about making this about a guy who's fantasizing about this woman that he subsequently stalks these things these changes could have been made easily and it would have made the film more acceptable to me the way the way it is though there are certain points in the film that I just have to reject outright that I can't I can't accept at all when Sam and this this woman Jill finally do meet near the end of the film his behavior is so unacceptable and so unbelievable that one of the first things she says to him is do you have any sense of reality but what is wrong with you and I feel like her that should have been her attitude toward him for the rest of the film because of the way Gilliam chose to to to set up his character and his behavior up to that point regardless it's it's a tremendous film if you haven't seen it you should see it it really is one of the seminal points in late 20th century film in fact one of my all-time favorite nonfiction books is the battle of brazil which is about how Gilliam made the film and how he got it distributed in theaters even though the distributor didn't want it distributed it's a fascinating read so see the film read the book that's it for now bye please remember to press that like button it helps my videos get seen and then subscribe so you can come back next time I do science fiction book tv and movie reviews all the time and please consider becoming a patron there's a link in the description below