Movies I Love, Part IV: “Brazil”
In Brazil, Katherine Helmond plays Jonathan Pryce’s mother. In one of the more incisive (and insightful) running gags in the film, she gets more and more plastic surgery as the movie progresses. Until her face falls off. Literally.
While that isn’t really what this invigorating film is about, it does underscore the cockamamie brilliance of Terry Gilliam’s vision of the future. Which, truth be told, is now. And that whole time warp is also part of the trip.
Pryce is petty bureaucrat in a dominating state, which we now catch phrase as Orwellian. You know, Big Brother, lots of technology and mind control. He dreams. Of this one woman mostly. Played by Kim Griest, he eventually meets her in his daily life.
Then there’s Robert DeNiro as a renegade Mr. Fix It, who rappels into buildings to fix things. Much to the masters’ chagrin.
Pryce tries to correct a governmental mistake. DeNiro is plumber terrorist of sorts. Griest is wanted also. So, well, they are all in trouble with the state. Which means paranoia rages.
This is as surreal as it is grim. It is also hilarious. A favorite scene is one where Pryce enters his closet of an office. He shares a desk with someone the next office over. Through a hole in the wall they fight over desk space.
What the film really has going for it, other than magnificently understated characterizations by Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Bob Hoskins and the aforementioned that is, are some of the most penetrating visual images on screen.
The film was released in 1985 — after a long tussle with the studio over its “meaning” and viability at the box office — way before the heyday of computer graphics. It is still a mouth agape joy to watch.
What does it all mean? Hell, who knows? Brazil is so lush visually, so full of great versions of the title song, so funny here and there, and so incisive most of the time, that it matters not if there’s a palpable message.
Just enjoy.
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