Brazil - Criterion Collection
 | Directed by Terry Gilliam Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins Criterion, 1985, DVD Customer Rating: 404 reviews Recommend This product is currently not available and cannot be purchased. It means that we have no merchant offers for this product at the moment or it was discontinued by the manufacturer. |
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If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director — oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus — this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant.
The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself — until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. — Jim Emerson
Title: Brazil - Criterion Collection
Sales Rank: 33460 in DVD
Actor: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins
Director: Terry Gilliam
Studio: Criterion, 1999-07-13, Theatrical Release: 1985-12-18
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.85:1
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Running Time: 142 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.6 x 1.9 inches, 0.85 pounds
- Criterion Gives Some Well-Deserved Treatment To A Great Film
- Brazil is by far in my opinion director Terry Gilliam's best film to date. To receive this kind of treatment by Criterion is great for anyone who loves this film. The addition of the "Love Conquers All" version of the film is great touch and really puts Gilliam's battle with the studios into perspective. This set is a bit pricey for the casual movie… More reviews
- 3 stars out 4
- The Bottom Line:
Brazil is a flawed masterpiece of a film; though it has many problems, most specifically Kim Griest's uneven performance as the inconsistently-written Jill, Brazil is an audacious movie that few will regret watching. More reviews
- DeNiro in an Art Film!
- Where else could you see Robert De-Niro as a revolutionary/heating repair technician in a Monty-Python member's masterwork. The theme is 1984 meets The Wall meets Doctor Who meets the muppets, and it is well worth the watch.… More reviews
- Interesting, but little more
- I typically like the more abstract and intellectually masturbatory films of this nature and I'm rather fond of dark satire so this should be a huge winner for me. I'm afraid it wasn't.
Certainly there were some very cool elements technologically, I rather enjoyed the somewhat steampunk design of what the world might look like now if everything had… More reviews
- If Orwell had a sense of humour
- Terry Gilliam's unique satire is as funny as it is absurd and dark. With the character of Sam Lowry he created the perfect anti-hero, not in the least thanks to the brilliant performance by Jonathan Pryce.
Equally well known is the conflict that Gilliam had to enter into to get his movie released as he wanted it, because the studio heads suddenly got not… More reviews
