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White to move and mate in two #586 -- Brazil, but not the country [1]

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Date: 2024-11-10  

I’m a big Terry Gilliam fan, and this is perhaps his best film. Following is an excerpt from a review of Brazil by Janet Maslin for the New York Times.

TERRY GILLIAM'S "Brazil", a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones. "Brazil", which was not scheduled for 1985 release until the Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted it best film of the year, was slated, as of yesterday, to open on Dec. 25 for one week in order to qualify for Academy Awards consideration. However, the opening was suddenly advanced, and it began its weeklong engagement today at Loew's New York Twin. It is scheduled to reopen on Feb. 14.

"Brazil" may not be the best film of the year, but it's a remarkable accomplishment for Mr. Gilliam, whose satirical and cautionary impulses work beautifully together. His film's ambitious visual style bears this out, combining grim, overpowering architecture with clever throwaway touches. The look of the film harkens back to the 1930's, as does the title; "Brazil" is named not for the country but for the 1930's popular song, which floats through the film as a tantalizing refrain. The gaiety of the music stands in ironic contrast to the oppressive, totalitarian society in which the story is set.

The plot itself, from a screenplay by Mr. Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown, is rather thin; it exists mainly as an excuse to lead the viewer into various corners of an unexpectedly humorous Orwellian world. Mr. Gilliam's answer to Mr. Orwell's Winston Smith is one Sam Lowry, a gray-suited bureaucrat who has a forbidden love, a lively fantasy life and a socialite mother. Ida Lowry (played hilariously by Katherine Helmond), who is constantly in the company of her in-house plastic surgeon, spends most of her time lunching with lady-friends and a bit of it worrying about her son's limited career. So Ida - whose fashion sense dictates that she wear hats that look very much like upside-down shoes - arranges a promotion for Sam. He winds up in an office so small that he has only half a desk and half a poster sharing both with the bureaucrat next door. This change somehow propels Sam into a romance with a woman who may be a terrorist and into a series of hellish nightmares.

Much of the cleverness of "Brazil" has to do with its tiny details, the sense of how things work in this new society. Signs glimpsed in the background say things like 'Loose Talk is Noose Talk' and 'Suspicion Breeds Confidence,' while television advertisements are for things like fashionable heating ducts 'in designer colors to suit your demanding taste' (the production design makes sure that heating ducts are everywhere). Politeness counts for everything, as in an early scene where one hapless Mr. Buttle is arrested in his own living room, stuffed into what looks like a large canvas bag, and led away, never to be seen again. At least Mrs. Buttle is given a written receipt for her confiscated husband.

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