Review – Brazil

With all due respect to his Monty Python days, I think this is Terry Gilliam’s best work. Jonathan Pryce stars as a white-collar drone trying to get by in a strange fantasy world almost completely taken over by brainless consumerism and inept bureaucracy. The art direction is the real star of the show, blending studio-financed dystopia with Gilliam’s low-budget aesthetic. The first time I saw this, I was working in an office not entirely unlike the place where the protagonist starts out. And to this day I’m fond of the rebel air conditioning repairman played by Robert DeNiro. Though it’s a bit silly in spots, overall the production is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Worth seeing