
Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a harried technocrat in a futuristic society that is needlessly convoluted and inefficient. He dreams of a life where he can fly away from technology and overpowering bureaucracy, and spend eternity with the woman of his dreams. While trying to rectify the wrongful arrest of one Harry Buttle (Brian Miller), Lowry meets the woman he is always chasing in his dreams, Jill Layton (Kim Greist). Meanwhile, the bureaucracy has fingered him responsible f... (Full plot summary below)
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Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a harried technocrat in a futuristic society that is needlessly convoluted and inefficient. He dreams of a life where he can fly away from technology and overpowering bureaucracy, and spend eternity with the woman of his dreams. While trying to rectify the wrongful arrest of one Harry Buttle (Brian Miller), Lowry meets the woman he is always chasing in his dreams, Jill Layton (Kim Greist). Meanwhile, the bureaucracy has fingered him responsible for a rash of terrorist bombings, and Sam and Jill's lives are put in danger.
Leave your thoughts about Brazil.
| The New York TimesJanet MaslinBrazil may not be the best film of the year, but it's a remarkable accomplishment for Mr. Gilliam, whose satirical and cautionary impulses work beautifully together. His film's ambitious visual style bears this out, combining grim, overpowering architecture with clever throwaway touches. |
| EmpireAdam SmithGilliam's dystopian epic remains among his best, blending his trademark visual inventiveness with a vicious brand of social satire. Unique and essential. |
| Chicago ReaderDave KehrA ferociously creative 1985 black comedy filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention--every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight. |
| TimeRichard CorlissIt remains a stunning achievement, if nearly as exhausting and frustrating as the Tex Avery bureaucracy it roasts, but Gilliam's stylistic dysfunctionalities, art-directed out of junkyards, are what still percolate in the forebrain. |
| Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenThis modern cult classic is a triumphantly dark comedy directed by one of the film world's truly original visionaries, Terry Gilliam. "Imagination" is this futuristic film’s middle name. |
| Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternTerry Gilliam's darkly funny and truly visionary retro-futurist fantasy is a mess dramatically, and its turbulent history echoes the battles fought by Orson Welles against studio executives bent on recutting or scuttling his films. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliBrazil can be enjoyed without knowledge of the behind-the-scenes circumstances but the rich irony of the parallels between Gilliam and his fictional creation, Sam Lowry, add a layer of appreciation to the project that it otherwise lacks. |
| IGNR.L. ShafferIt's a strange, hypnotic, completely fresh vision, not of the future per se, but into Terry Gilliam's own mind. |
| The New YorkerPauline KaelVisually, it’s an original, bravura piece of moviemaking, with a weirdly ingenious vertical quality: the camera always seems to be moving up and down, rarely across. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertPerhaps 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. |