Brazil | 
 enlarge | Actors: Jim Broadbent, Ray Cooper (ii), Robert De Niro, John Flanagan, Kim Greist
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  400 reviews
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D20168D
ISBN: 0783225903
UPC: 025192016820
EAN: 9780783225906
Theatrical Release Date: December 18, 1985
Release Date: March 31, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com essential video
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 identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 395 more reviews...
 If Orwell had a sense of humour November 12, 2008
Vincent Lassauw (Netherlands)
Terry Gilliam's unique satire is as funny as it is absurd and dark. With the character of Sam Lowry he created the perfect anti-hero, not in the least thanks to the brilliant performance by Jonathan Pryce.
Equally well known is the conflict that Gilliam had to enter into to get his movie released as he wanted it, because the studio heads suddenly got not only cold feet but also the crazy notion to have a happy ending and drastically make cuts in the movie to make it shorter. Gilliam took the right approach, organized a film critics screening who raved about it and thus embarrassed the studio execs. The result was two versions of the movie, the studio version without dream sequences but with happy ending to be shown in the US and a European version of the movie Gilliam had actually made.
It's true Gilliam's original ending won't let leave the cinema cheerful, but it's so strong and really the logical consequence of what preceded it, that changing it is an indefensible assault on the movie, that would severely immaculate it.
The title of the movie has little to do with the country, but refers to the song of that name, which can be heard every time Sam Lowry has one of his day dreams in which he is a super hero fighting a monstrous giant opponent, naturally to save a damsel in distress. He is utterly surprised when he meets this 'woman of his dreams' in real life, even if she has shorter and doesn't exactly fall for him right away. This is not helped by the circumstances of their meeting through his work as a civil servant representing a monstrous state machinery, that would even give Kafka nightmares, allowing him by the stroke of a pen or, as in this case, the collision of a bug with a typewriter, to destroy lives, in this particular case the life of the woman's neighbor named Buttle, who unfortunately by a spelling mistake on a form, caused by aforementioned bug, is arrested and subsequently executed.
Not everyone in the Orwellian society is as happy with the status quo and so there is an underground resistance, i.e. a group of terrorists, which is responsible for a series of bombings. Sam wants to know all about 'his' dream woman, who turns out to be called Jill Layton, but unfortunately his current level of information access it too low so a promotion is unavoidable to satisfy his hunger. Fortunately his mother, who is in an exceedingly more extreme state of plastic surgery, has the right connections to get him the promotion he needs.
When he can get to the information it turns out that Jill is a suspected member of the resistance. Sam vows to do all he can to save her and that way more or less become the hero he up to that point could only be in his dreams.
The story seems pretty straightforward, but Gilliam describes it all with very bizarre and satirical scenes, showcasing his Python background, but they always also have a very dark and serious side to them. The movie is visually overwhelming and its cast excellent, with a nice cameo by de Niro as a resistance fighter who challenges the state mainly by creative plumbing activities and who turns out to have been the man Tuttle the authorities were looking for when they arrested and killed Jill's neighbor.
The scenes at Lowry's place of work are hilarious and more particularly Python front man Michael Palin as Lowry's blood spattered friend is wonderful, both very funny and scary at the same time.
There are just too many details to mention.
Luckily Criterion made the ultimate release of this movie with both versions and a quite impressive collection of extras including a fascinating documentary of the creative history of this unique film.
 Not Into It... November 7, 2008
Lichanos
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I saw most of this movie years ago, and I just tried to watch it entire to see the first part I missed. Quit half-way through.
This movie has fantastic art direction, and is filled with small bits of good comedy, but it basically has one or two jokes told over and over again: jibes at the petty status-seeking of bureacratic society; satire of technological utopianism, as shown by the constantly screwing up duct systems, robots, anachronistic typing machines, etc.
The story is a simple and tiresome one about a poor guy who dreams of a girl, both from the opposite sides of the bureacratic tracks, etc...The "romantic" aspect is hackneyed, and of course, it's way too long.
Better to read 1984, Zamayatin's We, Brave New World than to watch this film. They're more clever, more disturbing, and more funny.
Terry Gilliam's vastly underrated masterpiece August 17, 2008
Mehmet Erdem Uenal (Istanbul, Turkey)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a masterpiece of a movie, one that a director can only accomplish once in a lifetime, and has to be watched without distraction. For young viewers who got used to today's nausea inducing camera shots and ultra quick half second edits, the pacing could come off as ponderous at first. One one level, it's a beautiful and even by today's computerized standards awesome cinematic masterpiece, one that's done without any 3D graphics at all, and even trying to imagine some of the scenes being constructed without the help of any computer graphics is simply staggering. On the other, it's a razor edged satire targeted at bureocracy and pettiness in our society. It's so obvious that this movie has been lovingly put together bit by bit with incredible attention to detail by whomever took part in it, from the costume designers to background painters, and only a director like Terry Gilliam could bring it all together without going insane with all that detail. Music is top notch, too.
Weird, wacky, wonderful August 9, 2008
John Bonavia (Needham, MA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
There aren't too many movies like "Brazil" around. It's been assigned to the category "steampunk" but I'm not sure that is correct- it has some cyberpunk attributes as well. Anyway, the labels aren't too important. What matters is the clever 3-way mix of human story, technology fantasy/satire, and sharp cynicism about the future of society.
Imagine a version of "1984" where everything is pretty much governed by the "information Ministry." But rather than being a horrifyingly efficient organ of the State, it is more of a bureaucratic nightmare with masses of "organization men" shuffling huge amounts of paper and aided - or hindered - by a computer technology that uses old Remington typewriter keyboards and small screens that have a magnifying lens in front of them! Televisions are the old 1950's style rounded-edge screens. HVAC systems are a jumble of huge hoses that breathe stertorously as they supply the air. A truck is a large cumbersome vehicle with far too many bits and pieces all over it, huge tires, and a general "Mad Max" look.
The film tracks the path of a guileless minor cog in this over-organized but inefficient society. He doesn't want to participate in any of the internal status struggles, just to stay where he is, doing meaningless work and fantasizing/dreaming of a life as a winged superhero soaring through the clouds to meet a beautiful woman...and great is his amazement when in real life he sees the same enchanting face! His life is never the same. I won't spoil the plot except that you can take the ending as either sad or happy, in spite of tragedy along the way. The dysfunctional social power structure has teeth that can bite and the SWAT types and their weapons are real enough.
Some of the vignettes are very much from the UK background - the two bloody-minded HVAC repairmen are a dig at the British trade unions, many of which are famous for their intransigence and turf jealousy.
The movie makes wonderful points about our ability for denial, as when a terrorist bomb blast shatters part of a fancy restaurant and the band plays on while the staff quickly erect ornamental screens to prevent the unharmed diners from seeing the carnage, and continue to serve.
Lastly, I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned the passing reference to Grace Hopper and the "bug" theory...An old piece of computer lore is that a program error on a very early computing machine was due to an insect trapped in a relay and Admiral Hopper then coined the term "bug" for program errors. This is likely incorrect, but it was amusing to see a huge mistaken-identity element of the plot of "Brazil" triggered by a bug falling into a clunky typewriter-like printer and causing a person's name to be printed incorrectly.
Well worth a viewing!
A Remarkable Achievement July 29, 2008
Michael LaRocca (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What can I possibly say about this movie that hasn't already been said? I'm just sitting here, a day later, still blown away.
Made in 1985, its predictions of a techno-future are eerily prescient while at the same time looking way cooler. Or more probably filming was happening in 1984, since it has shades of that fine novel. A hint of Clockwork Orange...
And really, comparing it to anything else is just wrong.
We have the menacing future, yet we have some powerfully conceived and brilliantly acted characters, in a plot that's fast and fascinating, along with what the cover rightfully calls biting humor. I was constantly laughing in the most inappropriate places, precisely as intended.
I don't give many five-star reviews. That means I'm keeping the movie and watching it again (and again). In this case, at the end of its 2 hours and 23 minutes, I really wanted to play it again immediately.
Oh yeah, and top notch special effects that'll blow you away, and the kind of sets I really wish I could've guarded back in my security guard days.
But I digress. Get this movie. It'll definitely live up to your expectations, and then some.
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