Brazil? Brazil!

And I pop back online.

I've barely taken the time to actually continue this blog simply because there isn't anything happening to me that is worth noting. Or at least anything that I really want to be talking about.

After much brooding (and working - as work really took its toll on me this month), I've mustered up all my thoughts into a coherent theme - Brazil.

Unfortunately, if you ever saw this gem of a film, you'd know that it's anything but coherent (in a conventional sense at least). I'd hate to sing praises for this movie and sound like a poseur, so I won't. At least I won't pretend to like parts that I didn't really understand.

I bought the DVD on sale at HMV in the UK (Thank God for Generic Region-Free Players). I hadn't really had the time to watch it until this month. I had half my brain focused on something else and early on it was a struggle to focus on somethings. However the visuals tickled my fancy. I couldn't really feel for Sam Lowry's (Jonathan Pryce) flight sequences but his mom's facelift scene early on is definitely priceless!

A hodgepodge of the futuristic 20th century and a bit of the old-fashioned 50's look mashed into one proves that Terry Gilliam is one sick, sick genius. The question what is "Brazil"? Is not answered at all. The title is just there, freely available for you to pick apart. Gilliam offers the best explanation, to paraphrase, it's Walter Mitty meets Franz Kafka. Or something like that.

A lot of explanation runs along that line: something like that. It's not quite definite and it is precisely this lack of certainty that "Brazil" plays around with. The dystopian utopia which is mildly reminiscent of the world that "V for Vendetta" presents, but unlike that 2005 release this Nineteen-Eighty-Four for 1984 film has no real menace. Except maybe for the bureaucracy which is a tangled mess of a paper trail much like the ducts which undulate and snake through the film. Untouchable and inscrutable by all except those who dare to do so.

And to dare to dream is what Sam Lowry (a pun? a relative of Willy Loman perhaps?) does. At least in his dreams.

An in mine as well. Or something like that.

Much like his character I live in the fantasies of my mind. No, I'm not dabbling in dirty talk. I just have these bouts of daydreams of incredible images and situations. Things that make my regular life, well more liveable. It's not that is that ill-lived. It's just that the inner-child, someone I've repressed throughout childhood is trying to break free.

And break free it must. To the rhythm of Rio's deep and throbbing beat if possible.


If Terry Gilliam has his way, the torture of everyday life will be underscored by saucy samba music. And in many ways, that's the story of my life.

Minus the samba dancing.

"Aquarela do Brasil" (Watercolor of Brazil)