Review of Brazil (1985) by Sandutter — 29 Jan 2014

I remembered this film from when I was a kid long ago as kind of cool in a strange way. Saw it today some 25 years later, and it was still strange. Cool only in certain parts. Annoyingly bad in many places. Though I think I enjoyed the fine acting more this time, not only by Pryce, but also de Niro (his best performance ever, in my humble opinion. He himself I suspect see this film as a goddamn mess), Hoskins, Palin, Broadbent, Vaughan and especially the always enjoyable Holm. Damn fine actors.

The sets are bad. Sorry folks, but they are just horrible. Like a cheap 80s rock video. The editing is below par. The writing is goofy, sometimes very funny, more often just incoherent and confusing. The thing that annoys me the most is the center piece: the love story, which is as believable as an American president would get the Noble Peace Prize . First, she (Greist) hates him (Pryce) and tries to kill him in numerous ways. Then, suddenly, for absolutely no apparent reason, she falls for him and wants to hump him immediately, which he declines and goes of to save her in some way (no real guy would ever do this...first you hump, it'll only take a few minutes, THEN you go and save the girl). The ending was frankly the best part of the film, for there I saw, for a very, very brief moment, the true meaning of existence...