Viking Night: Brazil
By Bruce Hall
May 5, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
While this is fascinating from an aesthetic standpoint, it renders many of Gilliam’s efforts somewhat inaccessible to mainstream audiences, leaving those already comfortable with him most able to appreciate him. That’s a bit of a shame because on the one hand, I’ve always felt that an overabundance of creative fanaticism is often the best way to bore more people than you entertain. But on the other hand, behind the zeal of a determined storyteller, this approach also ensures that for better or worse, nobody’s ideas are going to be on screen but yours.
This is definitely the case with Brazil, Gilliam’s ambitious 1985 film which is widely regarded as among his most significant works. Equal parts exhilarating, exasperating, macabre and moving, it is textbook Gilliam; the second part of what he called his "Trilogy of Imagination." Brazil is book-ended by Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and all three films sought to explore the escapist properties of imagination through the eyes of three very different characters in three very different universes.
Brazil centers on the efforts of a disillusioned idealist in an imaginary totalitarian state who struggles to find meaning in the drudgery of every day life, only to eventually become the victim of his own naiveté. In Brazil, trademark juxtapositions of reality and surrealism; modernism and antiquity abound, endowing the film with Gilliam’s distinctive dreamlike flair. Add to this the filmmaker’s well known disdain for bureaucracy and organized authority and you have what might have happened if Hunter S. Thompson went to bed dreaming about Max Weber – and Terry Gilliam was there to film it. But at the end of the day, Brazil is less a political satire and more of a dark, meditative comedy. It is George Orwell’s worst dystopian nightmare served up on a silver platter of cheeky irony, garnished with a healthy dose of winking sarcasm.
Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a government technician in a dreary, retro futuristic version of England where a mildly oppressive totalitarian regime controls every aspect of daily life. I say "mildly" oppressive because the government doesn’t seem overtly militaristic, although they are by no means above using force. They just seem to be the result of a once well meaning bureaucracy run amok, less able to effectively police its own actions than it is those of its citizens. Basic services such as plumbing, sanitation and power are in constant disarray, but the government remains organized enough to keep a watchful eye on the people.
Through the warm reassurance of well written propaganda, the bureaucracy promises citizens at every opportunity that every facet of existence is well in hand. Regardless, the people seem content to go about their lives in relative apathy; as long as there is food, shelter and the convenience of entertainment and shopping, nobody seems to mind the lack of basic freedoms and reliable civil services. Against this backdrop, Sam’s workday seems remarkably similar to what many of us might see on any given afternoon in a typical office. Half attentive employees slog through dull, repetitive work like dutiful bees, breaking up the tedium by occasionally stealing a look at old television shows on their computer terminals.
Sam’s life outside work consists of intermittent dinners with his mother (Katherine Helmond), a vain, self absorbed socialite who is intent upon using her government connections to help her listless son get a leg up in his career. But Sam isn’t interested in advancement. He is a dreamer, discontent with life in a society as grimly well ordered as an ant colony - where the people, their lives, their identities and even the very food they eat have been reduced to numbers and statistics. Yet, lacking any real motivation to do anything about it, Sam is content to while away his time absorbed in fantastic daydreams where he alone has the power to save a beautiful woman from the hands of a great unseen menace.
Sam also seems alone in that unlike most citizens, he’s subconsciously aware of the hollowness of life. But lacking a constructive outlet for his angst, he bleakly drifts from one task to another, his existence a dreary series of duties and obligations to be endured rather than enjoyed. Afraid of adding to his emotional burden, he adamantly resists every avenue for career advancement, until a unique opportunity finally presents itself.
It would seem that the Government has a bit of a problem with domestic terrorism. A group of renegade city engineers, dismayed with the monolithic government bureaucracy that stands between them and their work, has resorted to acts of sabotage in order to change the system. Thanks to a rather comical filing error, the Government’s search for the insurgent ringleader (Robert DeNiro), results in the wrong man being interrogated and accidentally killed. Through an intricate string of purely coincidental events, poor Sam is reluctantly assigned to the case.
Despite his desire to avoid success, his intelligence and skill – and his mother’s glad handing – have unwittingly singled him out as the best man for the job. But eventually Sam ends up becoming the focus of the investigation when he tries to clear the dead man’s name with the help of an activist neighbor named Jill, (Kim Greist) who just happens to resemble his Dream Woman. Smitten with her, and even after realizing that he’s in over his head, Sam accepts a series of promotions in order to be closer to her, and to find a way for both of them to escape the government’s suspicion.
Brazil is clearly a satire, but upon first viewing it’s easy to wonder exactly what is being made fun of. It would be convenient to assume that Gilliam, a counterculture child of the '60s, is simply lashing out at authority and Big Government in general. And in a film where sanitation workers take to setting off bombs because the amount of paperwork keeps them from working, that’s a logical assumption. But the very best satire takes often aim at its own audience and as with all of Gilliam’s best work, there’s much more – and less going on here.
Without a doubt, Brazil appears to have an opinion on government and technology, and how over reliance on both might be detrimental to the human condition. Some might perceive a cultural imbalance in our society that makes our inherent sense of community subservient to our desire to make the simple things in life even simpler. Is Gilliam pointing an accusing finger at us, insinuating that when given the choice between justice and comfort, we’ll eagerly resort to apathy as a happy medium? Probably, but Brazil’s intricate plot, its cast of colorful characters and the surreal, Orwellian world they inhabit are merely backdrops for something much simpler.
Sam Lowry is a meek, ineffectual man who simply wants to be loved; to belong to someone. His mother is a vapid social climber, and his best friend Jack (Michael Palin) is a government informant - no manner of accolade or amount of achievement will ever replace the fact that Sam feels sad and alone. He jumps at the opportunity to become Jill’s savior because in this he believes he will finally find the companionship he craves. Sam blames the government for his discontent, and the viewer likely perceives society to be Brazil’s primary villain as well. But being more Walter Mitty than James Bond, poor Sam isn’t quite up to the task of taking on the Establishment.
Terry Gilliam has often been accused of trying to say too much at once with his films, and it isn’t unfair to claim that his storytelling style lacks precision. But it is also possible that his best films are even less "novels on screen" than they are "moving paintings," splashed with vibrant emotion, vivid impressionism and poignant yearning. To Gilliam, the important thing may not necessarily be what you feel when you view his work, but that you do feel something, and that you take it with you from the theater. And like many painters, his meaning may be more focused than we are led to believe but perhaps it is more important that we take his impressions and form our own opinions.
Fundamentally, Brazil is simply a story about a good man with an active imagination who lacks the ability to make his flights of fancy come true. Is Sam really being kept from fulfillment, or is he holding himself back? We all have wonderful things we’d like to do with our lives, or perhaps once wanted to. But when you spend more time dreaming than doing, once you wake up you may find that life has passed you by.