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"Brazil" : Unmitigated Genius ! - And a Song !

Posted by Bambi B (A) on November 5, 2005 at 12:59:00

In Reply to: What's the consensus on the movie, "Brazil" (and why the title?)? posted by Guy on November 5, 2005 at 01:35:59:

Guy,

"Brazil" was Gilliam's telling of Orwell's "1984". The difference with Orwell is that the Winston character is not only prisoner of a repressive regime with a background of terrorism to justify repression of indiviuality, but instead of Winston's confrontation of his deepest fear in room 107 or whatever it was, Lowry becomes a prisoner of his fantasy life. In this society, his life is so minimal, he is constantly acting out his fantasies on impulse- with the beautiful truck driver (Jill Layton), in his work, and in relationship to the DeNiro character Tuttle- a kind of rouge terrorist plumbing and heating man bucking the system and making the revolutionary protest of skipping Form 27 stroke A- rejecting the repression of bureaucracy for a constructive purpose.

This acting out of his fantasy life ultimately destroys Lowry, as the system under which he lives- full of Orwellian Newspeak, the Memory Hole, and he is in the end helpless against the large scale information/intelligence structure, institutional torture used against terrorism. Anyone that tries to individually oppose this system can barely scratch it, as Lowry discovers. As soon as he substitutes actions for fantasy- he's destroys himself- he too alienated to have any approriate social interaction- no practice with reality.

The title referrs to the song "Brazil" and the connection is that Lowry's fantasy world overtakes him, he is living in "Brazil" -a self-delusional condition- as a state of mind.

It's a relief isn't it, that we don't live in that kind of world full of alienated, delusional people driven by fear, boring paper-pushing jobs, contrived enemies, terrorism, media misinformation, and torture -to a life in a compliant fantasy.

"Brazil" is Gilliam's "Citizen Kane" a really well woven tale, with enough well-timed, dark humour to sugar-coat the underlying tragedy - and it's timeless genius. Every American should be required to watch it once every three years -like all of Gilliam's films, it's about US!

Cheers,

Bambi B

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