QUESTION 3 - Gabriel Rodriguez-Fuller

As stated in the question, most sci-fi films tend to look "unapologetically forward". What is unique about Brazil is that it looks unapologetically at the present. The world of the film is so familiar in its details that it appears as an exaggeration of modernization as of 1985, rather than a look at "things to come". Sure, it can be viewed as a look at where the world is heading, but there are countless deliberate touches (such as the opening text "somewhere in the 20th century") that hint at Gilliam's true intention. Satire. As Sam is driving to give a check to Miss Buttle, for instance, old and withered billboards of 50's housing developments are shown. Whenever the film takes place, it is certainly familiar to '85, where the domestic ideals of the 50's were long gone and forgotten. In Buttle's neighborhood, young children play around with high powered firearms. By 1985, teen gang violence, gun violence, and similar phenomenon were already occurring, so by placing guns in the hands of elementary school children, Gilliam is clearly exaggerating the present. There are countless other images that meaningfully contribute to this satire of the modern world:

-All of the plastic surgery

-The office dynamic of information retrieval (uniformity and ass-kissing)

-The unjust killing of Buttle and the priority of order over justice

-In the mall bombing, mannequins are mixed in with dying people (desensitization)

-All of the pipes and tubes (the world is powered by incomprehensible technology that functions less than perfectly)

-Sam's dreams show his inner conflict in this world (he wants to fight "the man", but who is "the man"? Himself? He reaches towards Jill, but the cries of those whom he and the government gas wronged keep him conflicted.)

A particularly potent image is that the road out of the city in which the film takes place (I don't believe it has a name, which contributes to its allegorical nature) is lined with billboards showing pretty landscapes, completely blocking the view out towards a barren dessert which stretches indefinitely. This is perhaps the second most powerful example of the denial that is required to live in such a world. The foremost example is, of course, the song, "Brazil". We hear it most clearly when Sam is escaping in one way or another, primarily in his fantasies. The nostalgic tune from the 30s brings back imagined memories of a sunny past, completely unlike the present that Sam exists in. At the end of the film, Sam is essentially declared brain dead, or completely insane. The long-gone man in the torture chair weakly hums the tune of Brazil to himself, holding on to imagined peace and warmth as torture has further removed his reality from such an ideal. Delusion is all he has, and in retrospect, all he ever had.

A word about the matrix: The matrix itself (the illusion, the faux reality) is familiar, yes, but once Keanu has seen the light the real world appears entirely different from our reality. The idea that machines rule humanity is interesting, and perhaps even somewhat realistic, but as of 1999 it still probably felt quite a ways off. "That won't happen for a while." The human v. robot dynamic in the film mainly serves to fuel the action sequences, and the real thematic meat lies elsewhere. The Matrix is more about reality than about technology, let alone modernization. It's a discussion of perception with robots in it. By having "the matrix" perfectly resemble our reality, the films makes us question what we consider real. Now of course, we won't leave the theater genuinely concerned about being in a computer program, being grown as robot fuel, but we will question what we see and become aware of how limited our perception really is, in a grand and pure sense, detached from the plot of the movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave