I hadn't seen Brazil since I was very young, too young to comprehend. The wiser me is quite impressed by the timeliness of the whole thing, even while the writing remains lush with convolution...but this is the point. The 80s Orwellian rendering of a future economy is ripe with contradicting government information. The bureaucracy on display is intricate and messy. The characters are oppressed by demanding technology that it is omnipresent. The machines of this world are life-controlling. This is where the Gilliam touch flourishes. Every set is fully detailed with little gadgets and gizmos that pop off the screen in HD. The grungy monstrosity of the images are bold and iconic. The whole long experience can be appreciated at just the visual level, but at the essence of the confusing narrative and flights of dream fantasy, the movie is a cry for simplicity in government, a core theme that will always remain relevant, regardless of time.

Criterion Collection Spine #51 (143 minute cut)
"Top 100 of all time Selection"
"Top 50 of the 80's Selection"
"Top 10 of 1985 Selection"

"There you are, your own number on your very own door. And behind that door, your very own office! Welcome to the team, DZ-015"

Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' has come to be regarded as an anti-totalitarianism cautionary tale, a bureaucratic hell where fantastical dreams merge with dreary nightmares.

This is Terry Gilliam most visionary and ambitious work, with rich, visual and cynicism. With 'Brazil', Gilliam is at the top of his game, mixing black comedy with a seriously worldview.

It perfectly expresses the director's most troubling themes of the individual trapped by modernity's machine-like existence and a society content with its obscene abnormality, a theme that has more weight now than in 1985.

Essentially 1984 but with Terry Gilliam's exquisite visual quirkiness and humor. Jonathan Pryce is so wonderful.

It's a really interesting look at the future and I can really feel Gilliam's seemingly never ending fight with big film studios playing a major role in this film. Gilliam so desperately just wants to tell interesting stories with fantastical visuals and he very successfully does so with this film, but you can feel the years of shit he has and will deal with when it comes to studio executives in so many aspects of this film.

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a masterpiece of dark tragedy

I'd somehow never seen this before.
It's interesting, quirky, funny, dark and scary. I'm not much of a Jonathan Pryce fan though I'm afraid - he's not really leading man material - and some of the action and dream sequences were a little too long in my opinion.
I'm being harsh though: 'Brazil' is a fun, enjoyable and thought-provoking work but not without it's flaws.

(Castro Theater, 35mm, 8:49 p.m.)

i watched this in high school in my history class, i don't know why, and it gave me nightmares. so low rating, fuck you gilliam.

Shit. WTF. Don't get it. Weird.

cool

I liked Brazil.
I almost loved it.
Seeing it was a completely different experience.
The cinematography was awesome, the retro-future setting was awesome.
But there was a point in the story where I got lost.
I didn't fully understand what happened.
I got the message, but some parts of the story were too crazy for me.
This deserves a rewatch, really.