To simply qualify Brazil as inspired from George Orwell’s 1984 would be telling only one half of the story. The Byzantine plot is based in an Orwellian and dystopian future where the world has been converted into a cold, disconsolate, concrete jungle, populated by dysfunctional human beings, controlled by a Fascist regime and tyrannical bureaucracy, and operated by endless automisation. And, to escape the bleakness of the decaying world around him, Sam Lowry, a civil servant, takes refuge in his elaborate dreams where he is a winged superhero single-handedly fighting grotesque villains in order to rescue his lady love. Terry Gilliam, who directed this enormously ambitious science fiction film, filled every nook and corner of the story with pungent observations and jet-black satire of a technology-obsessed world filled with narcissistic, cartoonish characters, and quick to label revolutionaries and renegades (people who possess the courage to choose freedom over oppression) as pariahs and dangerous terrorists. The film, filled with special effects, production designs and breathtaking imagination that would be groundbreaking even today, has as its motif the melodious 1930’s song from which the title and the theme have been borrowed. Jonathan Pryce gave a superb performance as the meek, docile and escapist loner, and has been immensely aided by a host of terrific performances, including a quirky cameo by Robert De Niro.
Director: Terry Gilliam
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Political Satire/Social Satire
Language: English
Country: UK
