Hapless office drone, Sam Lowry, lives in a dystopian society. He frequently retreats to his imagination where he longs for, Jill Layton, literally the girl of his dreams. Director Terry Gilliam, admittedly inspired by Orwell’s 1984, manages to present one of the most breathtakingly imaginative worlds ever to be put on screen. The stunning Art Direction was nominated for an Oscar.
Menu
11 Responses
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, let me give you a piece of advice. When they start stringing endings together about two hours into the action, wait for one you like and then stop watching.
And don’t you wonder if the people who make films like this have the foggiest understanding of the ideas they seem to promote? For all his insights into the evils of big government, George Orwell wound up voting socialist all his life(?!); And knowing absolutely nothing about Terry Gilliam except the segment of society he’s a part of, I’d bet a week’s wages he does the same.
Completely disagree with you on this one. I was bored stiff.
With me and just about every other critic. 😉
——————————
From Wikipedia:
Total Film named Brazil the 20th greatest British movie of all time.
Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel named Brazil one of the 100 best films of all time.
Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the “50 Films to See Before You Die.”
The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazines list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.
————————-
I admit its themes are pretty cerebral. Watch it again in about 10 years.
I get that it’s cerebral and all, and I loved the story. It just lost its spark very quickly. I expected a lot more, this being Gilliam’s first directed film in the post Monty Python era.
I adore this film. It’s strikes me as so odd too because I always thought of this as the pièce de résistance of Gilliam’s filmography.
What’d you think of 12 Monkeys?
I loved it. One of my favorites from him as well.
Ah okay. Hopefully I’ll like that one more. 🙂
I watched 12 Monkeys the other day. I appreciated it so much more than Brazil. You could tell he wasn’t on LSD when he looked into the story and the mise-en-scène and whatnot. 😉
Definitely a more commercial film than Brazil. You should enjoy Time Bandits too.
All right. I’ll check it out.