Sci-Fi Without a Defined Time

The movie Brazil sits in a time that is neither past nor present. I think that being in a specific time (such as being clearly in the future) would hurt the film. The film is not meant to be a prediction for the future, it is not a prophecy of "Things to Come" (Get it? I referenced another movie we watched). By being set in a time with a mixture of past and present, the technology that runs throughout the movie is clearly visible and more relatable to the audience. In a sci-fi movie, we expect the technology to be more advanced, less intrusive, to fit with what’s around it better. Brazil is the complete opposite: duct work crosses the rooms, the computers are bulky and have typewriter-style keyboards, and the car looks uncomfortably small. All this is done to draw our attention to the technology and to emphasize how it actually, in the case of this film, makes many things more difficult. If the movie had a clearly set date in the future, we might look at it as more of a prediction, dismissing what is shown because we think it is an inaccurate prediction. But by not actually being a prediction of the future, the world in the film can be interpreted as an allegory, taken to the extremes to better representing a universal theme.