Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!pesnta!pyramid!decwrl!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper
From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.sf-lovers
Subject: BRAZIL
Message-ID: <1705@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 11:14:43 EST
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1705
Posted: Wed Mar  5 11:14:43 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 00:30:52 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 63
Xref: lsuc net.movies:3494 net.sf-lovers:6189


                            BRAZIL
               A film review by Mark R. Leeper

	  Capsule review:  This is the best science fiction film
     of 1985.  But catch this story of an Orwellian future quickly
     --it won't be around for long.

     1984 never came.  At least, not the way that George Orwell pictured it
in 1984.  The book was his prediction from the viewing point of 1948 of what
the next 36 years could bring.  It is a moot point how accurate his
prediction was, but the book is still a valuable yardstick for measuring our
current world.  It has been a valuable yardstick for years.  BRAZIL is a new
film.  It does not have the track record of having been useful for years.
However, it also seems to be a prediction from the viewpoint of 1948 of how
the world could have turned out and today it is no less valuable than 1984
as a yardstick for measuring today's society.

     In the world of BRAZIL technology has stagnated.  The lords of creation
are a megalithic bureaucracy and, apparently, the people who make heating
ducts.  All the technology in the world is refinements of inventions that
were around at the end of World War II.  (One exception, I think, is the
Fresnel lens, but for society to have changed so much and for only one
invention to come along is a rather telling indictment of this political
system.)  This is a paper-bound society in which the path to getting the
smallest thing done has the form in a triangle.  The greatest public enemy
is a man who does repairs without red tape.

     In this world one minor official, one Sam Lowry, has abstract dreams of
escaping the dingy crush of government world and flying free with his ideal
woman.  These fantasies have sapped Lowry's will to get ahead at the dismal
Ministry of Information.  When he finds that the woman he has been dreaming
of really exists, he starts fighting the mournful inertia of the society to
try to find her.

     Terry Gilliam seems to have for some time wanted to do in live action
the sort of things he did in animation for MONTY PYTHON.  He nearly
succeeded in TIME BANDITS, but the script of that film was extremely uneven.
This time he co-authored the script with Tom Stoppard, considered to be one
of the greatest living playwrights.  And the choice of Stoppard paid off.
For the first time in his career, Gilliam was not just making people laugh,
he was telling a story of substance.  Instead of just joking about the
meaning of life, Gilliam is now actually saying something about it.

     Jonathan Pryce, who oozed malevolence in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY
COMES, carries the film as San Lowry.  Also on hand are familiar faces like
Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, and Michael Palin.  This film
gets a +2 for pleasure, but on the -4 to +4 scale it can get nothing less
than a +3 for artistic achievement.  This was the best science fiction film
of 1985.  A recent FILM COMMENT takes Universal to task for releasing STICK,
JAMES JOYCE'S WOMEN, CREATOR, MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE, DREAM CHILD, WILD
GEESE II, and HOLOCAUST COVENANT in 1985, while deciding BRAZIL was
unreleasable.  Universal is absolutely right.  A film this good probably
will not attract enough of the teenage audience to make it profitable.  It
will play at your local art theater a week and then disappear, like SMILE or
STUNT MAN.  And just like these films, people will be rediscovering BRAZIL
for years to come.


					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper