Review for Brazil

Introduction

I reviewed Brazil for the site way back in 2003, a delicious sci-fi satire that has found a place in my cynical heart over the years. Since then of course, someone has invented high definition, and slowly but surely, classic movies are now being remastered for the Blu-ray format, offering greater clarity and an experience even closer to the original intent. You know, many DVDs were pretty good in the first place, and Brazil in particular got a nice release from Twentieth Century Fox on DVD. It's no longer a matter of the automatic upgrade that it was from VHS to DVD. But if there is one director whose work that deserves such an upgrade, it's Terry Gilliam, whose visual creativity and fecundity is such that it feels as if even film is too restraining a medium. If there is one title that ought to have you reaching in your wallet the moment its Blu-ray is announced, it's Brazil.

Unfortunately, this is one of those Blu-rays that in terms of content offer little more than the original DVD. It's the same movie, albeit 4% longer played back at the correct frame rate, the extras are the same, hell it even still has that Dolby Digital Stereo soundtrack. But there may just be one saving grace.

This is one of those dystopian futures so cherished by sci-fi fans back during the Cold War era, featuring a world drowning in bureaucracy and the pursuit of clerical efficiency. Sam Lowry is the small cog in the machine of perpetual paperwork that becomes the unlikely rebel against the totalitarian society. Sam is much like any other office drone, except that he displays a remarkable competence in his job with a strange reluctance to accept promotion, and at night he dreams of soaring free, a winged warrior who comes to the aid of damsels in distress. However a simple clerical error puts into motion a chain of events that will drastically change his life. Pretty soon he will meet the girl of his dreams and get involved with the terrorist underground.

Picture

If Terry Gilliam is known for one thing, it is striking visual imagery and Brazil has this in spades. The future bureaucratic metropolis is based loosely on fifties film noir, in terms of design and costume, but with peculiar touches that give the world of Brazil a singular identity. The small mundanity of the citizens in their dreary apartment hovels, surrounded by endless ducting and complex air conditioning is in stark contrast to the labyrinthine world of the bureaucracy, with its endless corridors and machine like precision. The effects are not really that impressive, especially in this age of CGI, but Brazil is far more about the atmosphere and ambience, and in that it is totally enthralling.

This Blu-ray gets the ideal visual transfer, presented at 1.85:1 widescreen at 1080p. The film is clean of any significant dirt or print damage, is stable and has a slight, tangible layer of film grain throughout, but appears otherwise unmolested by modern digital tricks like DNR. The detail is exquisite; the world of Brazil takes on a wonderful 3D life here. You can feel the depth and reality of this world, you can pick up detail that you'll never have seen before, the texture of fabrics, the satirical in-jokes in the background, the complexity of the world design, the wonderful shadow detail. The film looks spectacular.

I still have that DVD lying around, and straight afterwards I gave it a spin. It's still a top-notch DVD, it upscales like a dream, and in terms of recreating detail and clarity, it's no slouch. In terms of vibrancy, depth of colour and approaching the original film experience however, it just doesn't compare to the Blu-ray.

Sound

The disappointment comes in the film's audio. It's a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, which given that the film was originally released in stereo isn't the end of the world. It's also at around twice the bitrate of the DVD, the dialogue is clear, the action comes across adequately, and the music does as well. It's just a shame that a lossless audio track couldn't be provided. Hard of Hearing English subtitles are here should you need them.

Extras

The disc has logos for Regions A, B and C on the label, so importers start your engines. It also has a surprisingly long load time on my Panasonic for such a low-featured disc. The menus aren't all that complex, but this is the first Blu-ray disc that I have encountered so far, where my player remembers where I stopped the disc, even after I eject it. It also has the option of letting you create your own bookmarks for the film, instead of relying on the disc's preset chapter headings.

The extras are all lifted from that original DVD, presented here in 480i SD format.

This disc has the 3-minute theatrical trailer and it also has the What Is Brazil? 29-minute featurette. This is quite a fascinating documentary with interviews with the cast and crew. It's far from the usual publicity junkets we get nowadays and as well as being intelligent and engrossing, it is refreshingly honest and candid.

Conclusion

I'm sitting here, trying to watch Brazil, and my neighbour's plumbing has just kicked off again. Every time their toilet is flushed, a low frequency drone echoes through his house, and into ours, and has had me half convinced for the last three months that my home cinema system is picking up some kind of weird interference. My dad got a letter from a computer at the department of Pensions recently, telling him that his pension is being arbitrarily reduced. As soon as the Tory government came into power, intent on robbing from the poor to give to the rich, the first thing they did was to order an 'audit' at the Pensions department, and some hunk of silicon has decided that an 'irregularity' in the way his pension was calculated 12 years ago means that there is an 'error' in the government's favour. Now he has to go up against a bureaucratic nightmare just to get the money back for which he worked his life. I worry about the gas appliances in my house, because they weren't fitted by registered Corgi engineers, rather skilled people who could do the work without filling out tons of paperwork. Those Corgi engineers get jealous. The last time one was in my house, he condemned every appliance he could find. The IRA is out of business, but we still get bombs going off from time to time from various angry people. Those same angry people can be whisked off to Guantanamo at a whim, government sponsored kidnapping euphemistically called rendition, although they don't yet have to pay for their own torture. And a bureaucratic foul up got an innocent man; Jean Charles de Menezes killed a few years back.

When did I start living in 'Brazil'?

I love films like this, organic, living, ever changing and vibrant. Brazil really is alive, ever relevant, and as a viewer, my perceptions of it continue to alter with time. The first time I watched it, I was far too young to appreciate it, and found it dull and dreary, even a little monotone. When I reviewed the DVD for this site, it was a wonderful, comic satire, a dark fairy tale fantasy that was an effervescent explosion of visual imagination, its greys and monotones invested with the colour of its characterisations and story. The film itself doesn't alter, but perhaps it's the change in the world, perhaps it's the change in myself, nearly ten years older, more cynical, and more world-weary. But this time I watched Brazil, and it was like watching the real world around me, but reflected in one of those novelty mirrors that you get in funfairs. It's a warped image of our own society, one that makes the satire in the movie all the more biting, and the humour ever darker.

So should you buy the Blu-ray? If you haven't seen the movie, or haven't owned it before, then it's a simple yes. A film like this deserves to be seen, and with the Blu-ray available, you'll see it at its best. Of course if you are a dedicated fan of the film, you'll already have the Blu-ray on order, you won't need my input. But what if you are a casual fan that owns the DVD and is thinking of upgrading? It's a Terry Gilliam film, and consequently it's all about the visuals. The Blu-ray transfer brings out the best in the image while remaining true to the original organic feel of the film. It looks absolutely delicious. But that is it. In every other respect, you're getting the DVD over again, the same soundtrack, the same SD extras, and let's face it; the DVD isn't exactly burdened by a flawed transfer. As long as you remain aware that you're only getting the improved image, I'd say it's worth the double dip.

Note that according to DVD Beaver, Universal has released Brazil on Region Free Blu-ray in the US, and with a lossless DTS-HD MA audio track, but it is the 10 minute shorter theatrical cut.