Terry Gilliam's Brazil

[Harvey]

There's perhaps some visual similarities, but it would be difficult to reconcile the two versions of the future. And the tone of each film is so different, why would you bother? I do love both all the same, though.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, Brazil is more of an alternate world, one where technology developed differently. The design ethic is the future as imagined by the past -- the way people in the 1940s might've expected things like computers and phones to evolve. So there isn't really a direct throughline from our time to the movie's future, as there is in 12 Monkeys. They just don't fit together, in that sense or any other.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

And I think that "Information Retrieval" is a brilliantly Orwellian euphemism for a department of torture.

QFT

Brazil is a very haunting film that gets under your skin for days at a time. Don't watch this movie unless you're prepared to be depressed for the next 72 hours or so. (That's a good thing. That means it's working.)

I love so many of the performances in this movie. Bob Hoskins is always a joy. Ian Holm is great fun as the fussy middle manager, much more comedic than we usually see him. And Jonathan Pryce has never been better! I'd like to see him play this kind of role more often, but very few movies are written with this kind of a leading man, sadly.

While I think Gilliam is often too much of a scatterbrain that needs to be way reined in by producers, screenwriters, & budget limitations, he does achieve his most incisive work with Brazil. I'd say it's the best thing he's ever done outside of Monty Python.

I consider Brazil to be part of an unofficial trilogy of runaway budget sci-fi movies from the 1980s directed by obsessive, visual directors. The other 2 are Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and David Lynch's Dune.

 

[Pingfah]

I often find it hard to understand how Gilliam could do this, Munchausen, Fisher King, and 12 Monkeys, and then just sort of fall into a giant pit of fail. I guess I have to chalk it up to his Curse.

Have you seen Tideland from 2005? It's one of my favourite Gilliam movies.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Needs to see it again. Haven't seen it in about 10 years, and I think I'd appreciate it more now. Waiting for the blu-ray.

 

[Mr Light]

Tideland is probably the most disturbing movie I've ever seen. It's not even a horror movie yet it's so CREEPY!