Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) -Dreams & Love

[whughes]

Sam Lowry in real life is a low level government employee who is often day dreaming whenever he can. Sam’s dreams are definitely a little out there. However his dreams say a lot about his personality and what is to become of it.

In the first dream sequence we find Sam soaring through the skies feeling almighty and powerful. He completely enters a new world far away from technology and bureaucracy. In the dream you find that there is actual living and breathing nature which seems to be missing from the real world of “Brazil”. Here Sam encounters the woman of his dreams. As the movie progressed, I noticed something that seems to be missing from Sam’s life which is love. If you notice the poor and underprivileged people in this movie, they have so much love for their spouses or families. Even in the midst of having nothing. Yet, the upper class gets almost whatever they want but they show no real affection for each other. If anything, the way they treat each other is just fake for example the doctor and his wife. She was basically a statue or piece of art for him to show off to others. So, maybe love is something that means a lot to Sam because he never really had it.

As the dreams and Sam’s life progress in the movie, it’s clearly noticeable how both become more of a struggle. One day Sam comes to find that the woman of his dreams is not just a pigment of his imagination but that she is real. That’s where the trouble begins. At this point Sam’s character becomes a little more flustered and anxious in his attempt to find Jill. At this point it is almost evident that Sam’s dreams are starting to become his reality. While in his dreams he’s trying to save the woman, he is trying to find her in real life. In this process, Sam is falling out of the motion of his work pattern and he starts becoming a target of the government. In the end these dreams drive him to a point where finding Jill is his only business which puts his character into a complete state of delusion in the end.

With all of Sam’s dreams whether they were good or bad, he seems to find an escape route from his everyday life. I mean dreams are almost like an out of body experience. You can be anyone, you can do anything, and you can even fly. His life has become so meaningless at this point that it seems he would rather live the life of his dreams. In the last dream sequence, it shows Jill and Sam driving away into the distance which was the plan from the beginning. So, all the happiness he truly ever wanted consisted and lies within his daydreams.

[A. Dickinson]

I thought Lowry's dreams Were the most interesting part of the film. "Brazil", to me, was a very character centric film. Lowry's development as a character is critical to the film's development of its philosophical principles. In reality things are very dull, muddled up by bureaucracy and the hollowness of consumerism. But when Sam begins to day dream, his world becomes clearer, more absolute and exciting. These dreams help to show the viewer exactly what kind of development is going from Lowry's perspective vs. that of society's development (or lack there of it). These two developments seem to compete with one another throughout the entirety of the film, with the stacks overwhelmingly against Lowry. He doesnt know what he wants, but he knows for a fact he doesnt want to live in the world he has been inhabiting throughout his entire life. The dreams he has shows what he wants versus what he getting: he wants to be a strong person, but his world and his job keep him from being that, he wants to be with the girl of his dreams of the government has labeled her a terrorist, and finally he wants to escape from a world completely disconnected from nature and relies completely on over saturated technology that doesnt even work well. He wishes to escape from these issues rather solve them because he knows there is no to defeat what society has become.

[jvanhorn]

Lowry’s dreams show a lot about who he is as a character and what is happening in the world around him. At the beginning of the film, his dreams are peaceful and he’s surrounded by nature while simply looking for the girl he loves. As the movie progresses, Sam’s life gets more complicated. He is almost forced into taking a promotion he doesn’t particularly want. His clothes continually get him insulted. The people around him treat him with a certain level of disdain, as though he could have done so much more but instead is wasting his life. The only person who seems to appreciate him is his boss, and that is only because Kurtzmann is too afraid to do his own job and relies on Lowry to do it for him. This sense of growing involvement in Sam’s life by external forces is represented in his dreams. In one sequence he is flying through a field when buildings suddenly, and violently erect from under the earth, demonstrating that even in his dream state he is confronted by his job and other aspects of industry.

As the movie progresses and his involvement in his work and with Jill continue to grow, his dreams get darker and darker. He manifests a giant-like demon that he continues to fight, only to discover that it is, in fact, himself behind the mask. I think this represents the internal conflict he feels between following the law and following his desire. For so long in his life he seems to be completely without interest. He works, although he refuses to pursue advancement at his job. His home life seems utterly dull, as evidenced by his morning ritual of coffee and toast. And then he meets the girl he’s been dreaming about, takes his promotion to find her, and becomes a terrorist in the span of a few days. He’s fighting himself in his dreams because he’s fighting with himself in his head over which path he should follow.

At the end of the film, when his dream shows him driving away with Jill to live in the countryside, he has finally managed to find his happy place. He is unburdened by work and is in love. In real life he is unburdened by work because he’s completely zoned himself out and is living in his head. Although his happily-ever-after ending might be a complete fabrication in his mind, he doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference, and thusly seems fulfilled.

[tbrooks]

Sam Lowery was a man with a dream, flying gracefully through the air toward his goal. His goal being, happiness, which he believed would be obtained by love. Throughout the story, Sam keeps having these repeating dreams of him self as a supernatural being, who could fly like a bird. He then caught sight of the girl of his dreams, literally. When we see Sam go to work, we see him catch a glimpse of the woman he dreamt about. Jill Layton, the woman from Sam’s dream, just so happened to be the same woman that lived upstairs to Mr. Buttle, who then found herself in the place where Sam worked. Throughout the movie, the audience sees how Sam’s dream and his reality are very similar. In the dream, he is chasing the gorgeous princess and when he is at the tip of her fingers, buildings started to come up from the ground, blocking his path. In reality, while Sam rides the elevator to the first floor, he sees Jill though the glass. As close as she was, unfortunately, things got in his way, just like his dream. However, even though his reality and his dream are the same, his persona is completely different. In his dream, he is shown as this courageous hero, but in reality, when faced with an opposition, Sam Lowery, cowers and flees away from confrontation. Sometimes, it was hard to tell what was real and what was not. After fighting in his dreams, he finally gets the girl, flies off and everything seems happily ever after. However In the end, he gets to the point where his dream is so real and vivid that he is being tortured with a smile on his face.

[ecraft]

You are right this movie is all based around Sam Lowry's reality. It seemed his dreams was more what he wanted to live for than his actual life, because of the no love in his life and the control of technology, his day dreams is his sanctuary. And once finding that his true love exists he makes the means of making his dream the real reality. He truly doesn't care what really happens to anyone else but her. His dreams are what keep him sane I truly think. If we didn't have dreams I think anyone would just go nuts, that's why I feel he died happily because he had somewhere to go in the end. Reality did not exist after he snapped and was tortured. He had no true friend but the love of his life which he barely knew but that didn't even matter. "Brazil" makes you think will we as a society go to this point, where the government controls our lives and if we do one thing that they think is wrong we'll be tortured to confess? And only our dreams can keep us sane? Who knows but this movie was beautifully done, confusing but in end amazing.

[ledmands]

I think jvanhorn brings up a good point about the fact that Sam ends up living in his head. Is it the ability to block reality that makes one happy? In Office Space, Lawrence is an idiot, yet he is happy by his standards. In Brazil, Sam is not an idiot, but he is able to escape his woes by dreaming. He ends up happy by going crazy. Director Terry Gilliam could be saying that the only way to be happy is to be crazy and live in an alternate reality where you have no responsibilities, no worries, no nothing. However, when one is blinded to or refuses to accept the truth, are they really happy? By their perspective, they probably think they are, but by the perspective of someone that is grounded and learned, they are just stupid.

Sam knows he’s not happy, but in a world where ethics are compromised for financial success – which just happens to parallel our world – he’s trapped in his go nowhere job. He has the potential to be successful by his society’s standards, but when he accepts real authority, he finds it to be unfulfilling. It appears that Sam’s only route to happiness is via his dreams, and that’s exactly what happens. He becomes so depressed that he blocks reality in order to be happy.

Ignorance is said to be bliss and knowledge said to be power, but if power is a route to happiness, which happiness is better? Harry Tuttle seems to have found a balance. He is a blue-collar worker that is knowledgeable about the world and knows that the government is too controlling. He is essentially a smart Lawrence. He knows that his job is not the most successful one, but what he is doing is right. The government labels him a terrorist, but one man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. Tuttle is Sam’s hero, and when Sam finally loses it, the first hallucination he has is that of Tuttle and his renegades descending upon the torture chamber and saving him. However, Tuttle is destroyed by the very paperwork that he hates. Since his implied death is a part of Sam’s fantasy, we’ll never know what really happens to him, but we can assume that he is happy despite is low status. Gilliam makes the point through Tuttle that we shouldn’t let other people tell us what constitutes happiness as it can change from person to person, but that doesn’t mean we should let ourselves become drones and do nothing. Tuttle is more active, physically and mentally, than anyone in the movie, and it is his application of his wisdom that makes him happy.

[P Baird]

I do not believe that all of Sam’s dreams can be lumped together into a single category (Escapism, Longing for love ETC.) because I believe each dream (or sequence of dreams) are unique to the specific changes Sam (as a person) is going through at that particular time.
For instance, Sam’s first two dreams, which take place before he realizes Jill is indeed an actual person, suggest that he is starting to realize the hopelessness of trying to live as a free and happy person in the world of, “Brazil”. The first dream where Sam flies through the clean air of the heavens before he finds, “Dream Jill”, suggests that Sam does want more out his life than can be offered by his society. Sam wants things like freedom, love, and power. Sam second dream is more focused on Society rather than Sam’s personal desires and hopes. The skyscrapers exploding out of the pristine countryside represent Sam’s gradual realization of the effect the industrialization of the world has had on things like the natural beauty of the world. Once Sam has this dream, he feels compelled to make sure that Mrs. Buttle receives her husbands refund check. This simple courteous gesture seems complicated and foreign to Sam’s Boss. Society has become so impersonal and policy so rigid that the idea of doing a favor for someone (especially someone you don’t know) seems pointless and complex. It is the combination of this gesture and Sam’s first and (especially) second dream that shows Sam may be starting to rebel against the rigidity and the monotonous hum-drum of the world.
After these first two dreams, the story makes a ninety-degree left turn from where it seems to be heading. Once Sam makes the realization that Jill is indeed a real person, Sam’s dreams appear to be less focused on the state of the world and more on his obsession with Jill. In Sam’s fourth dream he has the option of saving enslaved citizens, including Mrs. Buttle, or saving Jill. He chooses Jill without hesitation. In the same dream Sam fights and defeats a looming Samurai-like warrior who apparently represents the state, however Sam seems interested in defeating the warrior less because it’s oppression of the baby-faced people and more for the opportunity of reach and rescue Jill. The rest of the dreams continue to be based around trying to rescue or reach Jill rather than dealing with the state.
This second sequence of dreams represents Sam is just a normal human, he is not a rebel or a revolutionary. While he does want something more than everyone else (who want to watch bad TV and eat steak flavored pudding), It’s not freedom or an uprising he wants. He wants love. He wants someone to hold.