Max Von Sama and the Samachine

Brazil: retro-futurism, Steampunk and much more

In: MoviesTopics: ,
June 11, 2012

Brazil is a 1985 science fiction, black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and it is a variation of George Orwell’s 1984.

When I selected the movies I wanted to bring with me during this trip, Brazil came out in evidence I had to take it. I love the “retro-futurism” a la Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a hint of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Here is what Roger Ebert wrote about the movie:

The movie is very hard to follow. I have seen it twice, and am still not sure exactly who all the characters are, or how they fit.

Perhaps it is not supposed to be clear; perhaps the movie’s air of confusion is part of its paranoid vision. There are individual moments that create sharp images (shock troops drilling through a ceiling, De Niro wrestling with the almost obscene wiring and tubing inside a wall, the movie’s obsession with bizarre duct work), but there seems to be no sure hand at the controls.

The best scene in the movie is one of the simplest, as Sam moves into half an office and finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war over his desk with the man through the wall. I was reminded of a Chaplin film, “Modern Times,” and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy.

If you still wonder what is this movie about, then you have to watch it. And let me know what you think of it!






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