I struggle with an essay for this film. I adore it. I had the privilege to see it on a big screen for the first time (and in my eyes for the third) at the Digital Gym Cinema in San Diego. I would like to share my raw notes, and then explain myself to myself afterwards.
Brazil by Terry Gilliam, thoughts:
system that only exists to prosecute, wholly defined by how easy it is for everyone to break a law, given how extremely nuanced it is
in this kind of system, you exist simply to ensure that laws exist, rather than law existing to ensure humanity exists
rules are god
secularism gone awry
very confused by dichotomy of the female character: she is both a strong-willed woman and a pleasure toy. none of that made any sense to me.
so why would someone like her care about someone like him, in a way that causes her to seek her femininity? the only thing i can think of is that she is attracted to his own embracing of breaking rules, but she doesn’t realize that he does that because he thinks he’s immune to them given his privilege
implies that a woman may hide her femininity simply because a man hasn’t cared about her, while this could be true for some, it implies that its possible for all.
Looking at these in order, it seems I warmed up to being comfortable stating how I feel about the primary female fantasy character. There are clear ties between my love of rules, but my fear of their impact on my life. I both love and loathe rules. Rules make me feel safe; it’s structure I can function within. I know how to be safe through choice.
I have no intention of breaking the biggest, it’s not my nature; but I fear honest mistakes can lead to catastrophe. This film makes that quite clear. The system itself exists to prosecute rule-breakers. It’s control gone deeply awry. Ironically, a lack of control in societal systems leads to the same problem: being a victim of the errs of the perceived intentions by those in charge.
What I failed to touch upon was this:
his mother (one of the only other female-identifying characters, and perhaps the most memorable) requires herself to be young, is this patriarchy response?
In a film dominated by men, I overlooked the women. I am unsure if this was a statement of the film. The female characters are all trapped in a system that gives them no autonomy, and thus less interest unless its body horror (a la the fantastical plastic surgery). They’re sexless and suffering, or aging and suffering, or aloof and suffering, or widowed and suffering. The women suffer, and are things to look at. But they suffer because of the story itself, not because of the film. Even the men in the film who choose to help women suffer.
The contraptions and spaces within the film feel probing, like in the image above. I suppose I myself have guarded my femininity in the face of things that expose it unwillingly.
I may be giving it too much. It was the 80’s, the time I was born in and the time I loathed until I entered my mid-30s and stopped hating things, like myself. Maybe I harbor a resentment for the era, as it led to the conditions which led to my own suffering.
This film entered the thriving cinemas of the 80’s a year before I was born. It was a bit of a roadmap for a future: that I was being born into a system of rules, a society of structure that inherently harms women, and a place of endless paperwork and concrete that made me crave nature, sex, beauty, pain, and love more than any goal I ever had.
Brazil’s world is a true nightmare that makes a feeling a fire deep within me.