Brazil

Terry Gilliam Ranked It’s been a minute since a movie had me literally gaping at how incredible it is.  The two most obvious things to point out are the production design and the cinematography. Every set was fucking insane and magical, every location had a purpose in the story, and it all felt so tangible and surreal at the same time. The cinematography was similarly hyper-stylized and very tangible at the same time. The abundance of wide-angle lenses distorted the images and made it feel not quite right, on top of the really interesting choices in framing and lighting which brought another level of discomfort and intrigue to the film.  The acting was all stellar as well, with Robert De Niro being one of the most entertaining performances but Jonathan Pryce absolutely succeeding in carrying the film with his leading performance. The costumes were inventive, eye-catching, and super interesting throughout, with a highlight being the heating technician’s hats.  This film has a great sense of humor, with approximately the entire fucking runtime being packed with jokes and strange imagery, but also being really horrifying in some of the content throughout. Everything is hilarious in this movie until it goes terribly wrong and the movie starts laughing back at you, which was an incredible feeling to get out of a film.  The score was also pretty amazing and helped to emphasize the goofiness of the situation while also keeping it pretty aggressively real.  The ideas are so big in this movie as well. The vast majority of them have been done before and since many many times, but they’re done better here than in most of those movies. Consumerism, individual value, family, aspirations, bureaucracy, wealth inequality, trust in the system, and more are really masterfully explored in this dystopian landscape. It’s not like most of these ideas are particularly new to me, but holy shit did this movie do one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen at conveying them.  I honestly don’t know if I have any criticisms of the film. It was a bit confusing a couple of times but I put the blame more on myself than on the film for not being comfortable with the style and feel of the film yet. It’s something that is undoubtedly a masterpiece, one of the best films ever made, and I NEED to see it again. TL;DR - “Care for a little necrophilia?”