Brazil: A Treatment on Materialism
Brazil (1985) is a hardcore black comedy directed by the brilliant Terry Gilliam. The film highlights a common dystopian theme: technocratic bureaucracy versus individual freedom. Sam Lowry (the main character in the film) tries to escape from the monolithic control that is suffocating him.
The color grey is predominately used in the scenery of the film and backlights the bleakness of human kindness, which is in direct contrast to the two representative classes of people: the proletariat (plain clad with a uniform appearance), and the bourgeois (bright and flamboyantly dressed). While these groups interact with daily life, terrorist bombers continually blow-up people all around them, but no one seems to care about the victims. Gilliam uses his Monty Python type humor to highlight the trend in current society to be more concerned with status than human empathy.
For instance, there is a terrorist bombing during a scene at a posh restaurant, half of the people are blown-up, and yet hardly anyone looks up from their dinner conversation. In fact, the headwaiter at Sam Lowry’s table apologizes to his wealthy patrons for the inconvenience and hurriedly finds a screen and some plants to cover up the obnoxious sight of dead bodies lying around. On another occasion at the mall, there is another bombing, and once again, the people are angry at the inconvenience to their shopping. Even Sam Lowry, the most empathetic of the lot, is more concerned about his domineering mother’s friend seeing him with a woman than the injured victims surrounding him. These are nonhuman responses, clearly.
This dystopian film allows the audience to be entertained by the twisted thinking of the characters in this film, while at the same time questioning our current society and its inclination toward materialism and the obsession of the day-to-day struggle to make a living while human suffering surrounds us. Gilliam extends the reasoning of the characters in this film ridiculously in order to arouse our indifference toward the inexplicable pain in our current society.
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Gilliam, T. (director). Brazil, (1985). UK: Embassy International Pictures.
1 comment:
Very good write-up of a most relevant film. Your review engages the reader with both thematic and cinematic observations and you give a subtle not to this films spooky relevance to contemporary times. Nice link to the Python site as well - their humor is well researched, intelligent and hilarious.
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