10 Best Ian Holm Performances
9. Mr. Kurtzmann - Brazil
Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a major milestone in both Holm's career and in sci-fi as a whole, credited by many as an important piece of the steam punk genre. Its aesthetic is one of surrealism, drawing the viewer in.
Holm portrays Mr. Kurtzmann. If ever there was an archetype for middle-management and bureaucracy, it is Kurtzmann. He is initially introduced, towering over the workers, staring them all down as they go about their shift. There is a strong sense of efficiency and authority raining from him.
Then, he steps inside his office, and the entire workforce switches to watching an old western. Twice he almost catches them and twice they seem to be working again. In an instant, his authority is gone.
Holm switches from strong to weedy and weak once Jonathan Price's Sam Lowry enters the office to save the day. He bustles about, unable to handle the change that has come in his day in the form of a refund cheque, albeit one for a man they find to be deceased. He depicts every sense of the hand-wringing, spineless manager that so many people will have met somewhere along the way!
He is loathesome in his boot-licking, yet likeable in his total dependance on Lowry. He may not have been the nicest character in the film, but he was entirely memorable.