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Let me say that I love Brazil. The country, the song – but most importantly – the film.
I've heard Terry Gilliam say that he's watched the film and remembered the guy who made that film. Evidently Gilliam, like most artists, moved on. Some of the images from the film have become classic bits of iconography – hordes of anonymous workers, explosions of paper work, the problems of ducts.
More and more I notice that films have gotten colder and darker. Is it 9/11? I remember people wondering if we could have humor, or if we could laugh again in our country. That problem has been solved. Yes, we can smile and laugh again. But I wonder if we got a little colder in our movies.
It's been notorious that Americans do NOT want to see a war movie. Generally the films having something to do with the Iraq War and the War on Terror have not made film makers particularly rich – Iron Man being a tangential exception that tests the rule and shows that the rule holds.
Yet to this movie-goer, popular movies have gotten colder and less hopeful. The dystopian and "torture/dismemberment" genres have become more popular.
Children of Men, 28 Weeks Later, The Mist, Invasion (the newest iteration of Invasion of the Body Snatchers), and The Happening provide some popular samples of what I'm talking about. Each presents a cold, hopeless version of events. And comparisons between these films with relevant partner films show some of what I assess at the movies.
28 Days Later was a 2002 film that opened in the U.S.A. in 2003. According to critical comment at the time it re-invigorated the zombie genre. 28 Days centered on the relationship between main characters who wanted to look out for each other and protect each other in cruel world. At the end (one of three that ultimately became part of the dvd) we saw that the entire world did not become infected. There was the possibility of survival. Indeed, director Danny Boyle rejected bleaker endings for the film.
By contrast, 28 Weeks Later centers on the weakness of relationships in which a man's fear of the zombies overcomes his love for his wife. Ultimately a central theme of the story is how an infected father pursues his un-infected children to kill them. Also, one of those children becomes the vector for spreading the zombie "Rage" virus to Europe.
The danger of adults to children plays a part of the end of The Mist in which a character commits a pointless mass murder at the end of the film – including the murder of his own child.
The listing of continued pointless murders, suicides, and needless suffering that isolate the viewer rather than induce empathy seem to be the stock in trade of these films. If the audience has any connection to the character, the character is gratuitously snuffed like Michael Caine's character in Children of Men. If the audience has no connection to the characters, we're left to wonder about the need for the limb and body count.
Spielberg's entries like Minority Report and A.I. exhibit the same coldness as noted in the movies above. Due not only to Tom Cruise's limited abilities as an actor, there seems to be an extra level of distancing in the film. And despite my admiration for Mr. Spielberg as a filmmaker, his "happy" endings seem forced – even more so in the cold movies of the 21st century.
Some might say that the coldness I'm attempting to describe is simply a feature of dystopian movies. The distancing of characters and situations from the audience makes sense in a dystopian universe like that in The Happening where plants tell humans to kill themselves. Yet this coldness shows itself in multiple ways.
This summer's re-invention of the Star Trek franchise has a level of coldness at its center. The film begins with a camera exploring a Starfleet insignia that appears to be made of cold steel. We see the possibility of friendship. But Kirk is now the son of an absent father. The cruelty of being raised fatherless (Kirk) or as a child of mixed-race parentage (Spock) become a main focus of the story. Likewise the villain is essentially a terrorist bent on revenge, murdering millions of innocents.
Simply note the differences between the Superman universes led by Christopher Reeves and Brandon Routh. Reeves' world has genuine trouble and character conflict, but Reeves' world also has hope. Routh's universe seems far bleaker.
It is a mark of how the world has changed that the only genuine sweetness I've experienced in the movies recently was in the movie Up. A montage in the early moments of the film actually builds a relationship and creates characters I cared about.
And it was an animated film.
Something's wrong here, folks. An animated movie shouldn't be the one to have more human characters than live action films.
I saw Brazil in 1986 at a theatre in downtown Iowa City. I sat enthralled at the story, the characters and the imagery. An early vintage Monty Python fan, I was likely to be pre-disposed toward the picture. But I encountered something that made me think and wonder and feel.
A good dystopian movie does that for us. In the midst of the chaos, disorder, and even purposeful evil – the audience can be taken into a place where we can wonder at the culture that spawns dystopian worlds. We can think about how our world matches the world of dystopia and where ours is better. We are brought to tragic sadness at the plight of characters for whom we feel empathy. The master (of course) was Shakespeare in King Lear.
At the end of Brazil, Sam Lowry sits in a torture chamber undergoing inquisition at the hands of a buddy. But Sam, to a degree is also safe in his imagination. He flies among the clouds.
Imagination. Perhaps a little more of that would help.
From the cineplex with the large tub of popcorn and shoes sticking to the floor.
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