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Brazil

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1985 dystopian film by Terry Gilliam

AI overview

"Brazil" is a 1985 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam that depicts a nightmarish bureaucratic dystopia. The film matters as a influential work of dystopian cinema that explores themes of totalitarianism, surveillance, and individual resistance against oppressive systems.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Film · TMDB

7.7

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Released: 1985-02-20143 minDir: Terry GilliamComedy, Science FictionBudget: $15.0MBox office: $10.0M

Cast

  • Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry
  • Robert De Niro as Harry Tuttle
  • Katherine Helmond as Mrs. Ida Lowry
  • Ian Holm as Mr. Kurtzmann
  • Bob Hoskins as Spoor
  • Michael Palin as Jack Lint

Themes

  • dreams
  • government
  • bureaucracy
  • police state
  • great britain
  • technology
  • dystopia
  • office
  • dark comedy
  • satire

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

Ratings

IMDb

7.8/10

221,794 votes

Year
1985
Runtime
132 min
Genres
Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

via IMDb

Key facts

Directed by
Terry Gilliam
Screenplay by
Terry Gilliam Tom Stoppard Charles McKeown
Produced by
Arnon Milchan
Starring
Jonathan Pryce Robert De Niro Katherine Helmond Ian Holm Bob Hoskins Michael Palin Ian Richardson Peter Vaughan Kim Greist
Cinematography
Roger Pratt
Edited by
Julian Doyle
Music by
Michael Kamen
Production companies
Embassy International Pictures Brazil Productions
Distributed by
Universal Pictures (United States) 20th Century Fox (International)
Release dates
20 February 1985 ( 1985-02-20 ) (France) 22 February 1985 ( 1985-02-22 ) (United Kingdom) 18 December 1985 ( 1985-12-18 ) (United States)
Running time
142 minutes
Countries
United Kingdom United States
Languages
English , French , German
Budget
$15 million
Box office
$9.9 million (US)

via Wikipedia infobox

~28 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Brazil is a 1985 dystopian science fiction black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film stars Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Peter Vaughan, and Kim Greist.

The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small flat, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines and where people found guilty of crimes are liable for the costs of their interrogation by torture. Brazil's satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporate statism, and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it has been called "Kafkaesque" as well as absurdist.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Brazil” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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