One of the top ten films of all times.
Do you concur with that assessment or not?
I love it, it's a great movie that would be in my top 50.
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MovieChat Forums > Brazil (1985) Discussion > One of the top ten films of all times.
Top 10...? No, probably not for me personally. But all films of all time? That's a competitive category. Brazil is an amazing blend of sci-fi and satirical comedy, it's unbelievably creative...it's a monumental achievement and it is a *great* film.
shareIt’s in my top 100.
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No. I think you’ve got the wrong person.
shareIt could make my top 100. I don't think it'd crack the top 10, but I could see top 50 or maybe even top 30.
Brazil is an underrated movie, and for some reason I find it weirdly "forgettable". Not that it hasn't stuck with me - it has - but just that when I'm thinking about "great movies" it doesn't always spring to mind. It gets buried under the films that spring more swiftly to thought, like Seven Samurai, Casablanca, Annie Hall, and Lord of the Rings. That's not to say it doesn't belong with those movies as one of the best, just that it doesn't hop into my brain as quickly.
The problem, I think, is in terms of how understated a lot of it is. For all of its zany, madcap characters (Harry Tuttle!) and grotesque satire (Sam's mother's deformation into a plastic surgery nightmare) it is, at its heart, a story about the remarkably ordinary frustrations and struggles of an ordinary man in a strange world. Sam is just trying to get on. He's exasperated by his mother, he's pining for a girl, he's lost in a cubicle maze (with weird, magnifying glass computers, no less!), and his fights with petty bureaucrats and paperwork aren't as mentally-arresting as some other plots. I'm thinking about other "gritty" sci-fi films like Children of Men. "The world has no children!" is a far more graspable plotline than, "A regular guy in a weird dystopia has nightmares and dreams and is trying to track down the catastrophic fallout from a government typo...also, there are rogue duct workers."
For all of that - because of it's weird, understated/overstated complexity - Brazil does achieve a mighty amount of commentary on society and humanity, and it deserves more recognition than it gets. It's truly one of the most underrated films of all-time.
It's definitely proven to be one of the most prophetic films ever made. Pretty much predicted the 21st century.
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shareIt's in my top 5. The UK version not the studio meddled US version.
shareWhat are the differences again? Did the US version change the end so he literally escaped?
Did that studio version actually get released though? Didn't he refuse to endorse it until they'd released his Synder cut?
Yeah. The US cut is 10 minutes shorter and has that happier ending, and from what I've heard, Gilliam was fine with the 122 minute US cut been released in North America while his preferred 132 minute cut was released in Europe.
It gets complicated when you bring in the third cut which really was a botched job. 94 minutes known as the "Love Conquers All" version and that's the version that Gilliam really locked horns with the studio about. As I understand it, it was never shown in the cinemas, it was only shown on TV.
The Blu-ray contains the full European cut, and the botched 94 minute version.
I think the Criterion contains all three cuts.
94 minutes known as the "Love Conquers All" version and that's the version that Gilliam really locked horns with the studio about...
Ah yeah - that's the version I was thinking of. Thanks.
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Definitely not. It is not even close to being in my top 300.
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