Brazil (DVD)

BRAZIL, INTRODUCTION Brazil is a Terry Gilliam movie and this in itself should prepare the viewer for something unusual, visually seductive and thought provoking. The movie does not disappoint. From the first moments of this wonderful movie I was hooked, the glorious and pounding orchestral theme provides an irresistible introduction to this bizarre and often surreal Orwellian fantasy of hopeless love in a totalitarian state gone mad, quite mad. ...
...of cinema's mature poets. His Brazil features homages to numerous other films, ranging from 'Modern Times' to 'The Empire Strikes Back', and its plot is broadly similar to 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. Yet the result is intriguingly fresh and creative. The best adjective to describe the movie's tone is "whimsical." It's the type of sci-fi/fantasy film that has an almost childlike fascination with strange sights and happenings. Rarely has a film so pessimistic ...

britum2000 06.01.2007 (07.01.2007) · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

... The plot of Brazil is frankly a side-issue to its metaphorical, blisteringly satirical tale of breaking from cerebral constraints and inhabiting a dreamworld, but hey, I’ll try my best. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is everyman, content to remain cloistered in the job he is good at, living his life of routine and denying he even has dreams… whilst of course living an internal nighttime monologue so dramatic Baron Munchausen would take a ...
...of a coy blonde beauty and is then brought crashing back down to earth with Icarian brutality. The earth he inhabits is a cluttered electronic nightmare of terrorism and beaurocracy (that the terrorists are more organised than the beaurocrats is no surprise), red tape and yet more paperwork. Sam’s something of a stickler for paperwork. Of course, in all this bludgeoning efficiency, the inevitable happens. There is an administrative error, a Buttle ...

ruth_cole 07.09.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

Brazil stands out from the usual crowd of self serving mass produced heartless Hollywood falderal and manages to provoke , entertain, move, amuse , astonish , delight and confuse all in the first five minutes, and then it proceeds to get better and better. You can probably tell already, I quite like this film, this is going to be a five star review and is going to contain a fair few superlatives, but the film really does deserve mine and your enthusiasm. ...
...fan, I would say that Brazil is where Gilliam is given free reign, where his unique vision is allowed to graze the pastures of deranged whimsy and paddle in the murky waters of bureaucratic nightmare. The story revolves around a clerk, Sam Lowry, played by the excellent Johnathan Pryce, who works for the omnipotent Central Services, a sort of Big Brother/Civil Service/Dictatorship that rules a steampunk future of no personal freedom, where dreams ...

Raybid 10.07.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

...Terry Gilliam's marvelous film Brazil is yet another example of this tradition. Gilliam is best known as a member of Monty Python, the surrealist comedy troupe from Britain. Python was famous for skewering everything they saw. Gilliam served as their cartoonist, occasional actor on the television series, and director of some of their films. Of course, you know all of this already. He later went on to direct many solo films including: Time Bandits, ...
...is his masterpiece. Brazil takes place somewhere in the twentieth century, presumably not in Brazil. Johnathan Pryce (Something Wicked this way Comes) plays Sam Lowry, a mid-level paper pusher who works, like everyone else, for the government. Sam is happy not to rise in position and importance, despite the machinations of his well connected mother. Lowry is a milquetoast in life, but in his dreams he is a hero, battling samurai warriors, and flying ...

nathanctyree 20.08.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

...role in the film. Brazil is one LSD trip of a film. If it was architecture it would be called Baroque. It's mean, moody and magnificent, bizarre, thought-provoking and very scary. Especially with Michael Palin's character. If I had to compare it to something, it would be like a mix of Pink Floyd's, The Wall, with a dash of Bladerunner, a smidgeon of Barbarella, and dollop of 1984. Very weird and don't be phased if you don't get it the first time ...

Salgirl 05.06.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

Former Python Terry Gilliam fought long and hard with studio executives to keep his neo-dystopian 'Brazil' in one piece. Thank God he mostly succeeded - with each passing year, his darkly comic masterpiece set "Somewhere in the 20th Century" looks increasingly like a portrait of Britain at the beginning of the 21st. Named after the idealised state in the jaunty 30's hit, the music carries through the movie in a variety of guises as an ironic counterpoint ...
...and eye-popping to look at. Our first view of our 'Hero' Sam Lowry (Johnathan Pryce) is as a winged superhero soaring through the clouds. The visuals and sharply satiric script almost distract the viewer from noticing that there are no likeable characters in the film. Sam Lowry is an ambitionless minion working for the Ministry of Records, one limb of a labyrinthine totalitarian government. Sam isn't even a small cog in this system - rather the ...

Plissken 28.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

...two and a half hours, Brazil is filmed in a number of interesting styles which will possibly be familiar or enjoyed by fans of his other films such as 'Twelve Monkeys' (time travelling sci-fi with Bruce Willis, recommended), 'Time Bandits' (a great, dark fantasy for children) and 'the Adventures of Baron Munchhausen' (sounds rubbish). He was also a member of Monty Python, and was in fact that American one who was hardly ever in it but who did all ...
...the search for youth. Apparently. Brazil would certainly serve excellently as a bizarre look at middle age, and was influenced by many of Gilliam's own experiences in life. Probably not all the weird bits like exploding cars and pipes hanging all through a room though. I was very pleased when I found out about this film, I hadn't previously known it existed, as it was exactly the kind of film I like. Plenty of very interesting concepts of a society ...

gunmenoftheapocalypse 12.12.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

There are at least 5 versions of Brazil. The European version. The US Version. The Final Cut. The "Love Conquers All" Cut. The DVD cut. All of these are different and I've seen all except the US version. The "Love Conquers All" version is disowned by Gilliam and was edited by a guy called Steinburg to give a happy ending. Gilliams cuts are the dark fantasy world, keeping Sam Lowry (Jonathon Pryce) as the hero who is stuck in a world of red tape, ...
...has many big names and recognizable faces. The writing is amazing coming from Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown. The best cut of the film is the non-happy ending of a tortured Sam Lowry who has turned into himself and escaped into his own catatonia where his fantasy world exists within his mind. Any version of this is worth a viewing. Even the sappy "Love Conquers All" version. ...

atytyut2434 17.07.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)

Easily Terry gilliams best film, the world it creates is a kind of dystopia of despair, with obvious influences from 1984, except sillier, It's my favourite film by far, and is a typical handmade film. Ok the stories a bit hard to follow thinking it all starts from a fly falling into a printer, but the galaxy of stars who blend so perfectly into this orwellian nightmare of burocracy create a beautiful story, imagine it as what life may have been ...

mikeyboy66 21.05.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Brazil (DVD)