Brazil, the movie

So, I finally sat down this weekend and watched Brazil. I had been thinking about this movie for several days, starting with the coincidence that brought it to the surface of my thoughts in the first place and then moving on to the different things I read and discovered about it.

One of the things I realized was that I was intellectualizing the movie, which misses the point. Well, maybe not totally misses it, but I can read what it's about, what the filmmaker thought it was about, and what others said about it, but like any kind of art, it's really all about my (the viewer's) reaction and response to it.

I had both versions, the original English version and the American version with the happy ending (the "love conquers all" version). It took me a few minutes to decide which one to watch first. I decided on the American one, not because I'm a sucker for happy endings--please--but because I figured that that was the one more people in the United States saw. I did read in an interview Rushdie did with Gilliam and elsewhere that Gilliam really didn't like what Universal did with the film and resisted their tinkering with it. Also, the original English version wasn't really the original, but rather the "director's cut," which I always distrust.

But after watching the two, I have to say that the director's cut was definitely the best. The American version seemed sanitized in a way, it was cut as if for TV and most of the more graphic footage, and all the fantasy scenes, were taken out. They did keep the "happy" dream sequences of Sam flying in the clouds, but that wasn't as meaningful without the corresponding bad dreams and the rest of the fantasy scenes. And then there was the happy ending. Comparing the two endings, the happy ending seemed trite and trivialized the film.

The ending in the original version was far more powerful, even if the only place Sam lives happily ever after is in his fantasies. The original version also withstands the test of time. It is as relevant today as it ever was. The government (which is supposed to be the U.S. of the future) is coldly efficient but amazingly incompetent. There is an emphasis on an underground that is reacting against the government that uses fear of terrorists to exert control resulting in more individuals being the victim of the government. A film definitely worth watching.