Brazil
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jim Broadbent, John Flanagan, Kim Greist, Ray Cooper (II), Robert De NiroDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 143 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-03-31
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Brazil
Movie Review: An acquired taste
Summary: 3 Stars
Brazil is definitely out there. The concept itself is very impressive and very well done. While the execution of the movie was flawless it still left me unsatisfied. I blame that just on my preferences and not on any slight on the film itself. Still it's worth noting that in my opinion Brazil isn't all that it was made out to be.
I think my biggest gripe is that this is a social-political satire and that just isn't enough to entertain me. Though the different scenes all make sense, when you think about it when they come at you it sometimes feels like a mess. I am assuming that is part of the charm in Brazil. I just couldn't get into it. It wasn't bad. It just didn't make a strong impression on me.
In spite of the shortcomings this is a very well done movie. The sci-fi style isn't quite cyberpunk. It seems more like "Golden Age of Wireless"-punk. I think director Terry Gilliam calls it Retro-futurism. Whatever it is, it's cool. Personal phones are mini-switchboards, computers have tiny screen with giant magnifying glasses and typewriter type keys, and God help you if you ever need to have your air conditioning checked. The characters are all quirky and cool at the same time, especially Harry Tuttle. There is a recurring dream that pops in now and then that looks beautiful. I think the dream sequences are the coolest parts of the movie.
Brazil might be one of those acquired tastes movies. If you are really into dark comedies or stinging satire then this might be right up your alley. For the average viewer Brazil might be over the top or hard to follow. If you are interested in unique retro-future tech then it's worth a look. I won't say every sci-fi fan should watch Brazil, but it wouldn't hurt.
Summary of Brazil
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director--oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly branding poor Sam as a miscreant.The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. Although the DVD (at a fraction of the price) doesn't include that set's many extras, it's still a bargain. --Jim Emerson
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