Actors: Jonathan Pryce, Robert Deniro
Director: Terry Gilliam
Dystopic movies often have a long uphill climb towards being entertaining because they first have to introduce the film's world without a lot of clunky exposition. Most dystopic films do so via long lectures (e.g. The Matrix, Logan's Run) that tend to end up, like, well, clunky exposition. Brazil refreshingly just throws the viewer right into the quagmire. This makes for a sprawling mess of a film full of half-realized tangents and oddball quirks. That's okay - the film seems to revel in its imperfectness as a way of form following function - i.e. its imperfectness can be explained away by its being created by artistic human beings who make mistakes, as opposed to the faceless bureaucrats portrayed in the film.
It seems no accident that Brazil was made in 1985, as it is an update of Orwell's 1984. Once again, it lacks 1984's clunky (yet fascinating) exposition - we are really left with no idea where in the world our characters are, how they came to be, etc. Gilliam is instead interested in the internal - the effect of this future society on a 'normal' person.
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going to add it to the queue
ReplyDeleteOne of my top 5 favorite movies of all time. I'm glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the older 1984 film with William Hurt? I'd be interested in heard what you thought of it if you have. Netflix doesn't have any DVDs of it but you can watch it on the comp.