If Time Bandits was the opening chapter in Gilliam's "Trilogy of Imagination", representing childhood, and The Adventures of Baron Muchausen the closing chapter, dealing as it does with the mind in the twilight of life, Brazil deals with the fantastical escapism of a man in middle age. Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry, a government bureaucrat who escapes from his dull conformist life with literal flights of fantasy in which he rescues an enigmatic woman. When a deadly administrative error leads him to the home of widow Jill Layton (Kim Greist) he immediately recognises her as the woman of his dreams, and Lowry is soon inexorably drawn into the labyrinthine world of the Ministry as he tries to determine who exactly she really is. The ideas and themes which preoccupy much of Terry Gilliam's movies before and since - the distinction between reality and imagination, lucidity and delusion; the Kafkaesque absurdity of mindless bureaucracy and authoritarian control; the post-Enlightenment tug-of-war between cold rationality and unbounded spirituality - all coalesce perfectly in Brazil, widely considered to be not only Gilliam's masterpiece but one of the greatest films of the 1980s. An acutely observed satirical take on George Orwell's seminal dystopian novel 1984 (at one point in production the film was known as 1984 1/2), Brazil examines that rare breed of human in the face of totalitarianism - a spirited individual who refuses to capitulate to the system, preferring instead to become a silent martyr than submit to the stamping boot of unchecked power. Obviously a round-up of the works of such a monumental talent as Terry Gilliam can only ever be subjective - everyone has their own favourites especially from a selection of movies which elicit such wildly different emotions. Do you agree with these choices? Why not post your own selection of Gilliam favourites below?
