Brazil

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Brazil (C+). This, I gather, is a pretty well-known film from Terry Gilliam, who also directed Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It is a tale of a dystopian future in the vein of Brave New World and 1984. In the world of Brazil, the government maintains control of a docile population chiefly by the crushing weight of its bureaucracy and the insane paperwork required to get anything done. It's like having the whole world run by the DMV. When necessary, however, the bureaucrats are backed up by frightening police forces dispatched by the Ministry of Information. Our protagonist is Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce, Evita), a low-level bureaucrat and generally decent guy who is superficially content with the status quo but whose dreams are filled with visions of freedom--and of a mysterious woman. Naturally she turns out to have a counterpart in real life that Sam sees from afar and becomes obsessed with. Robert de Niro (Meet the Parents) has a surprising role as Harry Tuttle, a freelance air-conditioning repairman and perhaps terrorist who inspires Sam to start bucking the system. It's a rather bleak movie, but certainly a visually interesting one.