brazil review

I'm going to try something more experimental and fun for this review (because it's my blog so I can, yay!). Basically, I'm going to be as brief as possible while trying to get as much across about my feelings on Brazil as possible. Additionally, I'm only going to give myself 30 minutes to do it. This will probably result in a review that's far less cohesive than I'm capable of writing, but will be a good exercise (hopefully) and a way for me to play with the review format. If that doesn't sound remotely interesting, thank you for even making it this far!

With that out of the way, here's your spoiler warning. I highly recommend watching this movie before reading what I have to say here, but whatever floats your boat:

Brazil is what would result if you took a world built on Suessian logic and technology, gave it to the humans of Idiocracy for 30 years, and then at the last moment swapped everyone out for the cast of 1984.

It's a heartless hierarchy which, once you reach its top, you find is not actually led by any one person or group. Instead, there's a few groups of people who will all blame the evil on someone else like a cowards game of telephone crossed with hot potato.

The world of Brazil feels like our world, but with the emphasis on all the wrong syllables. Air ducts are far too common, cars are just barely the wrong shape, technology looks like it's as advanced as ours while skipping steps in random areas.

My biggest problem with the film is that it doesn't feel like it can decide what to do with the lead characters. Is the protagonist meant to be an audience stand-in whose attitudes intuitively make sense to us, or is he supposed to be a master of the system shuttling us through this wild world? Is the love interest competent and motivated, or is she lonely and weak-willed?

The cinematography and framing is consistently artful, and the tasteful use of both clutter and empty space highlights the insanity. Being yanked from a crushing emptiness of a massive concrete box to the engulfing clutter of a room filled with dangling pipes and wires gives a sense of whiplash without ever feeling like two separate worlds.

Brazil lives off seeming contradictions, with the existence of the city itself being one to highlight. Everyone's attitudes on the government and its many functions gives the impression that this world always has been and always will be. Those who oppose it are few, weak, and directionless. Looking closer, seeing how poor the upkeep is and how overly complicated all the tech is makes you wonder how long this system can really last. The horrifying medical procedures and architecture on the brink of failing reinforce this feeling, and call to mind a ticking time bomb.

You also get so many moments of things just not adding up that eventually you get fatigued and stop noticing. It's a sort of cruel trick where by flooding you with enough nonsense you start tuning it out, and so everything is just allowed to flow through. It's impressive how quickly that feeling is brought on and how easily its sustained throughout the whole movie.

It diagnoses different problems in our system than 1984 and Idiocracy. The former focuses on the role of oppressive regimes and information control, while the latter to some degree blames the downfall of humanity on the correlation between competency and unsureness. Brazil, in contrast, in my view points to our self focused nature and ability to outsource our guilt if given a path to.

Rather good.

Reflecting on writing this review, I have one major takeaway: 30 minutes is far too long for what I was trying to do. ~600 words doesn't satisfy my definition of brief and the half hour was not enough pressure to curb my normal bloviating. Next time I intend to either try and make something more structured in 30 minutes (which will be very challenging due to requiring more rewriting and forethought) or reduce the time allotment significantly.