Brazil (1985) – 3/5

Not a lot of Brazil in this 1984 scenario from 1985

„Brazil“ is a fairly short title for this pretty long movie that makes it comfortably past the two-hour mark. It is a definite contender for most known career effort by Terry Gilliam, mostly because it is the one film that brought him the Oscar nomination, but maybe you can say that by now more people are aware of his Monty Python work from the decade before that. Anyway, this one here is from 1985, so almost thirty years old now or maybe this anniversary already happened if you come to read this review of mine a little later. I watched the film last night on the occasion of a retrospective on British movies that is now almost over and I would not say quality-wise it was the closure I would have hoped for. But I got this from Lawrence of Arabia and also I will still see a few more films before it ends, so all is good and a bad film it certainly wasn’t either. Anyway, Gilliam’s Oscar nomination came for the screenplay and I would not really agree there. I do agree with the art direction / set decoration nomination. There was really a great amount of attention to detail there and the film was spectacular from this perspective without a doubt. Maybe the movie’s biggest strength. In terms of acting, I am surprised to see Ian Holm score some solid recognition for crucial bodies even. I mean he was fun and nice to watch when he was one, but it wasn’t a lot really and he was not even a remotely crucial character in terms of the plot and story. Then again, there are other films listed with his nominations, so maybe it was mostly because of those and „Brazil“ was merely a filler. Good for him though and Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate it too. The two other writers are Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown. Stoppard is mostly known now for winning an Oscar for „Shakespeare in Love“ at the end of the old millennium and McKeown has worked with Gilliam on other occasions, even if you can surely say that their collaboration here is among his most known, maybe the most known career credit. But this is true for pretty much everybody who was a part of this project.

I somehow remembered this film to have a higher rating on imdb, but kinda good to see it stands „only“ minimally below 8/10 and thus not inside the top250 anymore. It is still too high. The lead actor here is Jonathan Pryce. I think he is always a bit on the likable side and he did a decent job here overall, but given the screen time he had, almost the entire film, I still think there could have been done more with the character. Then again, he mostly just an observer and it was the supporting players stealing the show. This could not really be said about Kim Greist though. She seemed so bland to me honestly and I have no idea why they picked her for this relatively crucial character. Not even wearing a long stunning wig and being almost a goddess-like character in the heavens on the most comfy bed you will ever see could make her interesting and certainly not when she was depicted as some kind of tough punk girl before that. This transformation there I had a hard time with either. I am not surprised one bit that she stopped acting over 20 years ago now. Robert de Niro is more memorable in his three or four inclusions. He always brings a major impact to the story in here and pretty much stole every scene he was in. The scene in the end when his character was pretty much devoured by the newspapers or press if you wanna say so was at the same time one of the most interesting as well most gruesome sequences there. Nice inclusions. I am not always supportive of De Niro, especially if he elaborates on aspects he shouldn’t, but I can say nothing negative about him here. Also a really inspired choice to accept this role. Katherine Helmond was of course particularly nice for me to see as I remember her from „Who’s the Boss?“ She plays the main character’s mother. A great deal of cosmetic surgery is included here and this include the really stretched face and everything about Mrs. Terrain down to the point when her intestines flush out of the coffin. Now that was harsh, but also how daring of the protagonist to jump in there afterwards. Okay, he did not have much of a choice I suppose.

Staying with the cast, we also Bo b Hoskins who had his big moment in the awards limelight not much later, even if he came perhaps surprisingly short at the Oscar given all the accolades he won before the big one. Jim Broadbent is also always nice to see. He, on the other hand, did win the Oscar in what was a year where it really could have gone to others too in terms of predictability. Here and there, you will also find familiar names and faces from Gilliam’s Monty Python years in the cast. I mean Michael Palin with that mostly. He will turn 80 soon. But now enough of the people and let us look more inside the plot and story here: For me it was really almost only the comedy aspect where I appreciated this film. This is also why I liked the first half or first hour more than everything that happens afterwards where it is really more a story-driven film with a few fairly scary moments even. The introduction to this world was nice than the in-depth elaboration on it or also how we see the protagonist become more and more of a rebel himself. This is up to everybody’s own liking of course. I understand people perceive it differently. The perhaps funniest inclusion for me personally was the idea that they used the names Tuttle and Buttle here where the confusion happened at the beginning of the film. Or I should rather say that they used Buttle because you know what this name sounds like and even if it gets repeated again and again, the joke never got too old for me. In terms of dramedy, this is not what I was looking for. I think I prefer the older pretty much full-on comedic approaches when it comes to Gilliam (and Monty Python). But it is okay he tried to reinvent himself new in certain areas and everybody needs to decide for themselves how they perceive it. Moments like the one where the wife asks (and keeps asking in the main character’s head) what happened to her husband and how he died were surely full-on drama. Even thriller maybe as the main character keeps exploring the darkest sides of his world and existence. The Casablanca inclusion stayed memorable for me too.

In general, there were quite a few nice shots here visually. I also liked this room in which he is captured, about to get killed maybe before the resistance fighters (led by De Niro’s character) step in and rescue him. Or do they really? The true ending there suggests otherwise, but maybe there Gilliam was also mocking happy endings in general a bit. He still used some of the common techniques, like how all is seemingly lost briefly before the end and then gets miraculously saved nonetheless. But back to this special place I just talked about. When the camera moves in a position for us to see how deep down we are basically with how high the walls go, it was surely on the memorable site, also how the resistance fighters made their way down there. Must have taken some pretty crafty stuntmen to do so. Of course, this was not De Niro himself, even if I would watch a film only about his character if there had been something like this. Or ever gets made. Highly unlikely. The explosion of the two guys (or just one?) triggered by De Niro’s character was also morbidly funny, just like this film is on so many occasions throughout. I also liked the reveal (in the sense of the actual depiction of the moment) that (at least) one of them is a robot. In fact, they did remind me a bit of Mario and Luigi with their handymen background too, even if they were no plumbers. What else can I say? I think we are getting closer to the end of the review now. I think sadly the movie dragged a bit the longer it went. It’s (close to) Monty Python, so I did not expect any clean structure anyway, but still. It’s rather the individual moments that make it work and not the overall thingey. Look at that really big evil statue that looked like from the Mayans or so. It disappeared so quickly, that it felt almost wasted, but I still remember it. Other film(maker)s would have made an entire movie centered around this being.

I stated earlier that the romance story here did very little for me and I do not only mean that in the sense of the actual love interest, but also the other one that the mother or so wants to see him with, but he is not too interested. Then again, we understand neither is she, so it is all good. Comedy is definitely king here. Always will be. Just look at comments like how he says his mother will spend the holidays at her surgeon’s and that does not mean than there is a romantic relationship between them or not even a real friendship probably. There will just be more stuff done on her. It was kinda funny. But not all comedy moments are winners here. One thing that did almost nothing for me was the inclusion of a young girl with blonde her and what she had to say was also mostly supposed to be on the funny side, especially her last comment it was I think about the protagonist’s genital, but yeah I did not find it funny, but others in the room did, so again it is all about what you laugh about in general. I had enough other segments and inclusions anyway that I liked and that made it relatively easy for me, despite the decline in quality, to give the outcome here a thumbs-up as a whole. I suggest you go see this film if you get the chance to, preferably on the big screen, but does not have to be there. It will surely be on television again in the future too. A must-see, it is not though. Not by any means, not even close, so my recommendation is more on the cautious side I’d say. Some of it was just too odd and random, like the Santa Claus inclusion at the end. You can also play the point-and-click video game adventure The Feeble Files (called „Floyd“ here in my country). The movie reminded me of this. Okay, that was random too.