The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

48 Richard Kelly
Terry Gilliam called this film “Walter Mitty meets Franz Kafka.” How
would you describe it?
Kelly: I would best describe Brazil as a portrait of bureaucracy run amok, or
capitalism run amok. It’s probably the most visionary example of an alternate
universe portrayed with such incredible logic. It’s incredibly absurd, but it’s
incredibly accurate to the system that exists in our world.
I would call it one of the most profound social satires that has ever been
filmed. It is unlike any film that has ever been made before or after. It is
also incredibly difficult to describe to someone who has never seen it. You
just have to say to someone, “This is a film you must see, and you must
experience it without any preconceived notions of what you’re going to be
watching.” I wouldn’t even know how to explain it to someone or sell it to
someone. That’s what’s so great about it.
Brazil is about this character who is part of this corporate, Big Brother
institution known as the Ministry of Information, and he works in information
retrieval and he’s offered a promotion. His boss, played by Ian Holm,
doesn’t want to lose him because he is such a valuable employee. This entire
circumstance is thrown out of whack because a dead beetle has fallen into
a typewriter and mistakenly replaced the letter T in Tuttle with B in the last
name Buttle. And in a case of misidentification, the Big Brother government
has tortured and killed the wrong man. These circumstances are set
in motion by something as arbitrary and absurd as a dead beetle.
Brazil had several different edits and cuts, including a completely different
American television version . . .
Kelly: . . . the “Love Conquers All” version, which was pretty hilarious.
So which one did you see when you first saw it?
Kelly: It was Brazil on LaserDisc at the University of Southern California
Film School in my freshman year of college, in the cinema library. It really
changed my life. It blew my mind. When it was over, I found myself affected
emotionally by what I experienced. The world that Gilliam created didn’t
even completely make sense on a logical level but somehow hit me on an
emotional level. I then immediately went back and watched the film two or
three more times, and started putting the pieces together and putting the