sah@ukc.UUCP (S.A.Hill) (04/25/85)
BRAZIL
======
BRAZIL is the latest film to spring from one of the Monty Python
team. In this case Terry Gilliam. Gilliam was responsible for all those
marvelous animations and for the sets in The Life of Brian.
BRAZIL is simply the best film I have seen in years. It blends an
alternative world (all too similar to our own) with a dark sense of humour.
The world created recalls Orwellian images; a place where bureaucracy
has taken over and individuals are forgotten behind the masks of their own
occupations. Great attention has been paid to detail; you see company logos on
equipment and the computers are real computers with all the works visible.
Gilliams humour is never far away and is used to great effect breaking
tension and keeping the audience on its toes. He switches from dream to reality
without warning, but with devastating results. The images he uses are sometimes
nighmarish, often amusing, and always bizarre. The special effects are subtle -
you know they're there but do not notice them at the time, and spectacular - eg.
flying scenes that look real.
BRAZIL? Why BRAZIL - well all I can say is that it comes from the
song of the same name. The theme haunts us through the entire film (and
for some days thereafter). It can be both joyous and full of life or heavy
and depressive.
The film is difficult to classify. It could be SF, but in the
sense that 1984 is. It could be humour, but don't go to see it if you want
to be laughing all the time. It is surreal at times, but all too real at
others.
Well, I shall not attempt to describe the plot - too much happens,
and it is best left for the viewer to interpret when she/he sees it. I
have attempted to put into words what I felt of the film, but it is such an
impressive production laden with abstract ideas and deep emotion that the
only way you will be able to appreciate what I have attempted to describe
is to see the film.
If you go on a Friday it will give you all weekend to recover.
Steve Hill.rick@ucla-cs.UUCP (04/29/85)
I saw this movie at a preview in Hollywood. I found it to be to uneven and
confusing to give it a good review. You get dangled along for a while and
then find out you were watching someone's dream! I think a lot of the
problems with this movie are that it has an identity crisis - it doesn't
know if it is a comedy or drama. The humor ranges from slapstick to
sophisticated satire. I suspect the average viewer, Joe Q. Public will
not like this one. And the ending will leave you stunned in your seat.
--
Rick Gillespie
rick@ucla-cs
...!{cepu|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|ucbvax}!ucla-cs!rick
"She turned me into a newt! . . . I got better."leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (03/05/86)
BRAZIL
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is the best science fiction film
of 1985. But catch this story of an Orwellian future quickly
--it won't be around for long.
1984 never came. At least, not the way that George Orwell pictured it
in 1984. The book was his prediction from the viewing point of 1948 of what
the next 36 years could bring. It is a moot point how accurate his
prediction was, but the book is still a valuable yardstick for measuring our
current world. It has been a valuable yardstick for years. BRAZIL is a new
film. It does not have the track record of having been useful for years.
However, it also seems to be a prediction from the viewpoint of 1948 of how
the world could have turned out and today it is no less valuable than 1984
as a yardstick for measuring today's society.
In the world of BRAZIL technology has stagnated. The lords of creation
are a megalithic bureaucracy and, apparently, the people who make heating
ducts. All the technology in the world is refinements of inventions that
were around at the end of World War II. (One exception, I think, is the
Fresnel lens, but for society to have changed so much and for only one
invention to come along is a rather telling indictment of this political
system.) This is a paper-bound society in which the path to getting the
smallest thing done has the form in a triangle. The greatest public enemy
is a man who does repairs without red tape.
In this world one minor official, one Sam Lowry, has abstract dreams of
escaping the dingy crush of government world and flying free with his ideal
woman. These fantasies have sapped Lowry's will to get ahead at the dismal
Ministry of Information. When he finds that the woman he has been dreaming
of really exists, he starts fighting the mournful inertia of the society to
try to find her.
Terry Gilliam seems to have for some time wanted to do in live action
the sort of things he did in animation for MONTY PYTHON. He nearly
succeeded in TIME BANDITS, but the script of that film was extremely uneven.
This time he co-authored the script with Tom Stoppard, considered to be one
of the greatest living playwrights. And the choice of Stoppard paid off.
For the first time in his career, Gilliam was not just making people laugh,
he was telling a story of substance. Instead of just joking about the
meaning of life, Gilliam is now actually saying something about it.
Jonathan Pryce, who oozed malevolence in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY
COMES, carries the film as San Lowry. Also on hand are familiar faces like
Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, and Michael Palin. This film
gets a +2 for pleasure, but on the -4 to +4 scale it can get nothing less
than a +3 for artistic achievement. This was the best science fiction film
of 1985. A recent FILM COMMENT takes Universal to task for releasing STICK,
JAMES JOYCE'S WOMEN, CREATOR, MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE, DREAM CHILD, WILD
GEESE II, and HOLOCAUST COVENANT in 1985, while deciding BRAZIL was
unreleasable. Universal is absolutely right. A film this good probably
will not attract enough of the teenage audience to make it profitable. It
will play at your local art theater a week and then disappear, like SMILE or
STUNT MAN. And just like these films, people will be rediscovering BRAZIL
for years to come.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leepermsc@saber.UUCP (Mark Callow) (03/06/86)
> > BRAZIL > A film review by Mark R. Leeper > <text deleted> > > ducts. All the technology in the world is refinements of inventions that > were around at the end of World War II. (One exception, I think, is the > Fresnel lens, but for society to have changed so much and for only one > invention to come along is a rather telling indictment of this political > system.) Umm -- the fresnel lens was invented by a Frenchman named (surprise surprise) Fresnel, some time in the 19th century (it may have been even earlier). He designed it for use in lighthouses. I know, I know this isn't relevant to net.movies. Let's see...Ah ha, here's a tie-in. Any movie ever made with artificial lighting has used lamps fitted with fresnel lenses. -- From the TARDIS of Mark Callow msc@saber.uucp, sun!saber!msc@decwrl.dec.com ...{ihnp4,sun}!saber!msc "Boards are long and hard and made of wood"
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (03/07/86)
A tiny and minor correction: Augustin Jean Fresnel died in 1827, and invented his lens somewhat before that. It was just hard to make one until they could press one in plastic. -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
norman@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Norman Ramsey) (03/07/86)
In article <1705@mtgzz.UUCP> leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) writes: >ducts. All the technology in the world is refinements of inventions that >were around at the end of World War II. (One exception, I think, is the >Fresnel lens, but for society to have changed so much and for only one >invention to come along is a rather telling indictment of this political >system.) This is a paper-bound society in which the path to getting the Actually, the Fresnel lens was invented by Augustin(?) Fresnel in the nineteenth century, when he started working for the government on the problems of optics in lighthouses. He was one of the few nineteenth-century students of optics whose work can still be read as physics today (the other one perhaps being Thomas Young). He is probably most famous for his theory of diffraction, which stunned the scientific world by predicting (correctly) the appearance of a bright spot in the center of a shadow cast by a circular disk. Of course, this has nothing to do with sf-lovers, except to point out that there were NO technological innovations since WWII. Besides, I thought you might like to know. -- Norman Ramsey norman@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Pianist at Large
leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (03/09/86)
It appears that the Fresnal lens has been around longer than I realized. I should have thought that it was used in lighthouses for many years. I was thinking of Fresnel lenses as being only the plastic ones we started seeing in overhead projectors in the 60's. Thanks for all who corrected me in e-mail and on the net. I guess my point that the society in BRAZIL had stagnated is made even stronger by this. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
alfke@csvax.caltech.edu (03/11/86)
From: alfke@csvax.caltech.edu In his review of "Brazil", Mark Leeper writes: > The book [1984] was his prediction from the viewing > point of 1948 of what the next 36 years could bring. It is a moot > point how accurate his prediction was, but the book is still a > valuable yardstick for measuring our current world. Orwell was describing things that already existed in the world of 1948 and making them more obvious, not trying to predict 1984. To view it as prophecy makes it seem safer, but that wasn't his aim. > All the technology in the world [of "Brazil"] is > refinements of inventions that were around at the end of World War > II. Yes, I liked that, and it's also one of the things I liked about the recent film of 1984. > One exception, I think, is the Fresnel lens . . . The Fresnel lens was invented by Messr. Fresnel sometime in the 19th century (although he didn't use plastic, of course!). But the TVs being magnified by those lenses are too small to not contain transistors, and those weren't invented until 1948, and not miniaturized until later. It's a wonderful idea, though, looking at those tiny TV's through magnifying lenses ... Conclusive comment: ** Everyone go out and see "Brazil" as soon as possible ** --Peter Alfke alfke@csvax.caltech.edu
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (03/11/86)
> It appears that the Fresnal lens has been around longer than I > realized. I should have thought that it was used in lighthouses for > many years. I was thinking of Fresnel lenses as being only the plastic > ones we started seeing in overhead projectors in the 60's. Thanks for > all who corrected me in e-mail and on the net. I guess my point that > the society in BRAZIL had stagnated is made even stronger by this. > > Mark Leeper > ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper Those of you who saw the most recent (and best) remake of _1984_ will recall that all the devices in that film are minor innovations on 1940s technology -- the use of pneumatic tubes, for example. It's tempting to see this as the art director's attempt to portray the world of _1984_ in terms that Orwell would be familiar with, but in fact, if you read the book, you will recall that he makes the point that the system stifles innovation and creativity, and that the only real improvements in technology are the implements of war. Advances in the sciences have to be connected to implements of war, or they were discouraged by the repressive atmosphere.