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BRAZIL
(1985, Gilliam)
A film from the Criterion Collection whose number includes the #5 (i.e. 15, 405, 854): (#51)



"Of course you want something. You must have hopes, wishes, dreams."

"Aquarela do Brasil", the song that inspired the title of this film, was written by Ary Barroso in 1939 on a night when he was unable to leave the house because of a heavy storm. Its lyrics sing of past memories of a place or a state of being where whoever's singing it will be unable to return to ("we softly murmured 'someday soon'", "the morning found me miles away, with still a million things to say").

When you think of that, it actually makes sense as to why director Terry Gilliam chose it as the symbol of this odd film. Set "somewhere in the 20th Century", Brazil follows Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a low-level bureaucrat stuck in a meaningless job, while having "hopes, wishes, dreams" of things he might never be able to attain or achieve, especially a woman for whom he fights as a "winged warrior".

Much like the song, Sam lives in a constant state of tedium, as he is burdened by his mediocre boss (Ian Holm), his overbearing mother (Katherine Helmond), and the pressures of a job he doesn't seem to be interested in, and yet doesn't seem to be interested of getting out either as he keeps rejecting promotions that are arranged by his mother.

Several things shake Sam from his slumber: first, the accidental arrest, torture, and death of an innocent man at the hands of the totalitarian and excessively surveilling government, which in turn leads him to meet who he thinks is the woman of his dreams (Kim Greist); and second, his encounter with Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) a rogue "handyman" that rejects the control of the government.

What ensues is a quest to finally meet this woman, but also to finally escape the grasp of this oppressive world in which he feels he doesn't fit. Will the onslaught of bureaucratic impediments and Kafka-esque absurdism ever let Sam be free or will the morning found him "miles away, with still a million things to say"? "Someday soon", says the song as the singer keeps repeating how certain he is he will return "to old Brazil".

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