I have a confession to make. I didn't know who Terry Gilliam was until I was 18. And didn't like Terry Gilliam until I was 24. Hell, I thought Monty Python was the actual name of a guy!

First Gilliam pic I saw was 'The Fisher king' (I went with a girl I liked). Honestly, I didn't get it. Just plain hated it. FX were strangely underdone, and the story completely unbelievable. So my friends took upon themselves to introduce me to the Python gang. Their comedy was interesting, not as slapsticky and obvious as American comedy. I slowly discovered the dry British sense of humor.

And then I saw Brazil. Ladies and Gentlemen, I got it. I DUG it, but maybe not for the same reasons that most movie fanatics did. It was the perfect sarcastic mirror for what was my life, stuck in a hell a bureaucracy and cold politeness, with no means of happiness except my own imagination.

For those who don't know the movie, here's the breakdown. It constitutes Part 2 of Terry's 'Fantasy VS Reality' trilogy, after 'Time Bandits' and before 'Baron Munchausen'. Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a very smart computer analyst who likes his quiet little job, because it allows him to daydream all he wants. His mom, a wealthy woman who can't accept her age, pushes him into bigger and better things, at least in her point of view.
Sam's world is rocked when he spots a headstrong woman who happens to look the same as the girl he always gets in his romantic daydreams. In order to track her down, he will have to submit himself to the world of bureaucracy he so craftily avoided. The deeper he gets in it, the more his 'dream world' will clash with reality, until he is completely sucked and stuck. He ends up with no choice but to escape reality by forfeiting his sanity, and finally be happy in a what's left of his dreamworld.

Sounds weird? That's not even half of it!

Brazil is often compared with other anticipation stories like 'Blade Runner' and '1984'. It succeeds, however, where those other movies fail completely, because of its hilarious yet painful sarcasm. It is a comedy that downright scares us. The futuristic setting chosen by Gilliam isn't a means to show you what could or will happen, but to slap straight in our face the ridiculousness of what actually really IS.

Here's one example among many in the movie: Harry Tuttle. Harry is a rogue, a guerilla, an almost terrorist. Actually, he's a rare plumber who knows his job (and played to a T by the legendary Robert DeNiro). When the government fails to help citizens, Harry shows up like a cat burglar, and does the exact repair needed, in no time above all. When the real plumbers arrive, they get pissed: The criminal Tuttle helped someone, once again, instead of letting them submerge the client in a world of paperwork.
Kill me if none of you EVER wished for a Harry Tuttle to burst into the door and fix the cable, the water pipes, the electricity, the heating, so you won't have to call back the service for 5 days before being told no one can get there for at least 2 more weeks. Is it really completely farfetched a concept? And is it not a funny one as well? Heck, even Geoff Muldaur's exotic theme song 'Brazil' brings out the huge gaps between what we conceive as a dream world versus what the establishment tries to sell us as such.
All throughout the movie, Gilliam offers us such humorous portraits of what goes on every day in our morbid routine.

And to support the director's extraordinary vision are an equally extraordinary cast. Alongside Pryce and DeNiro are Ian Holme as a helpless boss, Bob Hoskins as a sleazy plumber, Michael Palin as a brown-nosing torturer, and lovely Kim Greist as the woman of Sam's dreams. Despite DeNiro's very short appearance, his presence is truly worth buying the movie. Think Harvey Keitel in 'Pulp Fiction', or Mike Myers in 'Mystery Alaska'.

Despite its brilliance, Brazil marked another notch in Terry Gilliam's own 'series of unfortunate events'. The poor guy just can't seem to get a break with his films. For this one, the studio didn't like the ending, if they liked the movie at all. They delayed the release for a long time to cut their own edit, prompting Gilliam to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times asking Universal 'When are you going to release my movie?'. He was so disgusted by their montage that he threatened to disown the movie, forcing the studio to fix it for the video release. To this day, 4 different versions are known to exist.

Gilliam will have been vindicated in the end. The movie was nominated for 2 Oscars, won 2 BAFTAs, and ranks #188 in IMDb's top-250 list. Plus, he managed to convert me to the new religion that his Gilliamism. No small accomplishment!

The movie's strongest asset? It's absolutely not outdated. The exaggeration and sarcasm still hit the bullseye, even in 2004. Especially in 2004.