I am going to take a slightly different approach to chatting about Terry Gilliam’s 1985 futuristic, fantasy, drama, comedy Brazil. Primarily because a standard approach doesn’t interest me. There is only one question that made me come back to this movie; it bothered me actually. It bothered me so much so that I decided to write about it when I actually wasn’t going to.
“Were there actually any terrorists?”
For anyone that hasn’t seen this film, it stars Jonathan Pryce (you know, Governor Swann from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) as Sam Lowry. Sam is a government civil servant and he is serving in a future where technology has run amok, so much so that the world has basically gone backwards. Paperwork dominates and a small error adjusting a “T” to a “B” sends Sam’s world into an absolute shit storm. He’s caught up in a dreamland filled with visions of a beautiful woman. A world where he is a superhero battling giant samurais. Sam is hardly a balanced character, but what else would you expect from Terry Gilliam?
Personally, Gilliam doesn’t do a whole lot for me. I will admit I hated Tideland, love Twelve Monkeys, don’t mind The Brothers Grimm and have never had the patience to sit all the way through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Obviously, I have not seen all of his films and I do have The Fisher King, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Jabberwocky in my NetFlix queue and will be watching them very soon.
However, we are here to talk about Brazil, and what better way to begin the conversation than to present to you the words of the first scene of the film. This dialogue comes just after a commercial for heating ducts, which basically serve as a presentation of useless shit that people buy because they think they need it. Just watch this flick, it’s dominated by ducts and it is pretty funny. Perhaps you could compare it to the iPod or the cell phone, however these ducts are even more useless, but they may just play a major role in the film. We’ll get back to that in a second.
As the commercial plays in a store window suddenly a massive explosion blows out the window and the following interview is playing on one of the remaining, working televisions. Read it really quick:
Minister Helpmann: Good evening David.
News Anchor: What do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings?
Minister Helpmann: Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seems to have forgotten certain good old-fashioned virtues. They just can’t stand seeing the other fella win. If these people would just play the game they’d get a lot more out of life.
News Anchor: Nevertheless, Mr. Helpmann, there are those who maintain that the Ministry of Information has become too large and unwieldy.
Minister Helpmann: David, in a free society information’s the name of the game. You can’t win the game if you’re a man short.
News Anchor: And the cost of it all Deputy Minister. Seven percent of the gross national product…
Minister Helpmann: I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayer. People want value for money. That’s why we always insist on the principle of information retrieval charges. It’s absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and for the information retrieval procedures used in their interrogation.
News Anchor: Do you believe the government is winning the battle against terrorists?
Minister Helpmann: Oh, yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs. We’re fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I’d say they’re nearly out of the game.
News Anchor: But, Mr. Helpmann, the bombing campaign is now in its 13th year.
Minister Helpmann: Beginner’s luck. [laughing]
News Anchor: Thank you very much Mister Minister.
Minister Helpmann: Thank you David, and a very merry Christmas to you all.
First off, don’t you love the subtle name Helpmann for a high-ranking government official? Oh, and tell me you aren’t thinking of the current U.S. administration while you read the sentence, “Do you believe the government is winning the battle against terrorists?” and you can hear Bush saying, “Oh, yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs.” We could also draw comparisons to John McCain when the Minister answers “Beginner’s luck” to the question of 13 years of terrorism, but I am not here to present a political agenda… or am I? Hmmmmmmmm…
Pushing politics aside (for now), let me pick a few things of note out of the conversation. Key to the film are the 13 years of terrorist bombings, the fact that the government (Ministry) is getting too large and that guilty taxpayers are taxed for their periods of “detention” during the “retrieval procedures used in their interrogation”.
The film is a picture of a totalitarian society focused on technology, plastic surgery and appearances. It has the feel of “1984”, the George Orwell novel of which Gilliam references in his commentary on the DVD as well as admitting he never read, despite word the film was originally titled 1984½ as a nod to Fellini’s flick. To the contrary Gilliam says during the commentary he originally meant to title the film Ministry based on the government that would seemingly do anything to maintain control of society. An endless stream of paperwork and monitoring is the surface level of control seen in the film. However, the terrorist angle is the more interesting form of control used in the film. The question is just how controlled are the terrorist bombings?
One thing our current administration here in the States has managed to do is use the threat of terrorism to scare its citizens into thinking certain levels of surveillance and actions are necessary to National Security. This idea gives the government endless amounts of control. Take that idea and imagine a world where terrorist bombings are occurring on almost a daily basis. Now imagine they happen so regularly you hardly take notice if half the restaurant you are dining in is blown away. That’s the world of Gilliam’s Brazil. The one key aspect is that we never see any terrorists. This leads me to the possibility of three conclusions:
- There actually are terrorists and Gilliam just never shows them to us.
- There are no actual terrorists and the government is just randomly blowing things up to maintain a level of fear in its citizens, which helps them maintain their control.
- There are no terrorists and it all boils down to faulty heating ducts randomly blowing up giving off the perceived notion of terrorist bombings.
Please, don’t think #3 is ridiculous. I actually think it is what’s going on here. Not only does it work to the government’s advantage, but it also makes so much sense in the context of the rest of the film.
First off there is Central Services (the folks that make the heating ducts). They have repair guys who respond to emergency phone calls due to faulty heating ducts. They show up on a whim and even break into your home to fix things. Continuing the issue you have Harry Tuttle played by Robert De Niro, a man who is at the center of all the confusion and being sought after by the Ministry as a terrorist, but it turns out all he is is a freelance heating duct fixer.
Then there’s the interrogation of suspected terrorists. See that pic above, that’s the interrogation room and that’s the “interrogator” in the baby mask and he isn’t there to only ask a few questions. His tool kit is next to the chair.
My assumption is the Ministry is so clueless they have resorted to actual torture to try and get alleged terrorists to admit to wrong doing all while charging them for their stay in detention. No one is fessing up because there aren’t any terrorists and there is nothing to admit.
The great thing about the film is that I am not sure if Gilliam ever meant for it to be dissected. Listening to his commentary it sounds to me like he believes it is all straight-forward and the wackiness is just that, wacky. He laughs at the silliness of it all and even begins to wonder himself why some things are in the film. I think it is great, and I think he would even be willing to examine the question of whether or not there are any terrorists, because I think he would actually be open to any one of the three conclusions I came to above.
Other than that one question, there was one other thing that really intrigued me about this film.
During Gilliam’s commentary he says how he tried to tie in a lot of music because he has a desire to create a musical. Building on that, I believe this film would have been absolutely brilliant had it been a silent film.
The picture above is of the men working at the Ministry and it reminded me so much of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (I dug into that one here) and the future presented by Gilliam is so much like the future in Lang’s silent film that I really think it would have worked. For those that have seen both films I am sure you can imagine Brazil as a silent film with “Aquarela do Brasil” by Ary Barroso playing throughout (as it already does). Imagine reading Sam asking Spoor, “Do you have a form 27b – stroke – 6?” and seeing Bob Hoskins’ reaction immediately after. It would have been priceless.
Brazil was nominated for two Oscars (Original Screenplay and Art Direction). I can’t help but wonder what it would have done at the Oscars had it been a silent film. I guess I will never know.
Overall, I am not quite sure if I think Brazil is brilliant or just a good source of conversation. Obviously it is the latter and if pressed I would probably just say it is a passing interest, one that I don’t ever plan on revisiting after this.
NOTE: For the fanatics out there, the version I watched was the 142 minute fifth and final cut Criterion released.
