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PeruvianSkies
12-13-2007, 12:51 AM
http://movieimages.tripod.com/brazil/brazil-dvd.jpg


No, not the country, but the mentality that is exuberated in Terry Gilliam's brilliant futuristic dark comedy BRAZIL (1985) starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert DeNiro, Bob Hoskins, Ian Holm, and many other greats.

Now some people have probably seen the film, but it's important that you see the correct version OF the film, which is the full length directors cut that runs nearly 2.5 hours, instead of the butchered studio cut, which ran a short 90-minutes that completely changes the entire plot of the film and is a true bastardization if ever such a thing exists.

The more times that I see this film and as time clicks by I cannot help but realize just how prophetic this film truly was 20+ years ago and it's amazing how the world we live in now reflects many elements of BRAZIL, which is not a compliment by any means.

Take for example the sophisticated restaurant scene where a bomb explodes in the background and many people are hurt, yet the rich uneffected people continue conversation without even a flinch and are inconvenienced by the explosions disruption of their meal. How dare a bomb go off like that? The mother asks, "What are you going to do about these terrorists" to her son, he replies "It's my lunch hour." Just scathing.

The films look into a place that is completely controlled by the state with practices and protocols that seem counterproductive are only one of the many interesting points that the film brings to the surface and it's equally interesting how today things seem to reflect many of the same things, even if we are not necessarily 'controlled' by the state in obvious ways, the subtle ways are just as effective and because of that we are blinded by the distractions of what seem to be ideas of freedom. This is clearly demonstrated in several ways during the film where paperwork leads to paperwork.

What I really love about this film is the redundancy and impracticality that is overemphasized in such brilliant ways, take for example the small television sets, which have large magnifying glasses in front of them, so rather than invent a larger TV, they fix the problem with a bulky magnifying glass to 'solve' the problem. The technology presented in the film is certainly not futuristic, but rather set in the past, yet modified in ways that are de-evolutionary in many respects and I see examples of this in todays world more and more. Instead of fixing the source of the problem we create things to avoid the problem.

The political coverups in the film is also brought to life in relevant ways as this system doesn't seem to have any accountability to mistakes, rather than admit fault and or fix the problem the protocol is to pretend that the mistake wasn't made and fix the mistake as if there is no repercussion from the mistake. A man is killed accidentally, so the right man must be found, but again, no compassion is offered to the family of the deceased aside from trying to pay them off for this little 'mistake' that occurred in the system. Oops.

So do we live in BRAZIL? In many sad ways, yes. Hopefully there are enough of us intelligent souls who are proactive enough to avoid this future world by spotting it before it's too late and have the influence to not let things get like this. I am not quite optimistic though as it would only seem that as time advances that we are becoming more programmed into what 'they' want and not what 'we' want.

johnny p
12-13-2007, 05:36 AM
Bobby D. "fixing" the vent-work is hysterical...... and the fact that everyone in the gov't agency is referred to as a number or "D764-9" or what not....

PeruvianSkies
12-13-2007, 10:15 AM
Bobby D. "fixing" the vent-work is hysterical...... and the fact that everyone in the gov't agency is referred to as a number or "D764-9" or what not....

Scary ain't it?