Kelham Island Film Club- Brazil

A bureaucrat in a dystopian society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.

Brazil is a dystopian science-fiction black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam centred on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines.

Brazil's satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporate state-ism, and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it has been called "Kafkaesque" as well as absurdist.

Despite its title, the film is not about the country Brazil nor does it take place there; it is named after the recurrent theme song, Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil", known simply as "Brazil" to British audiences, as performed by Geoff Muldaur.

Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release. It has since become a cult film. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted Brazil the 54th greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.