Satire, as it has evolved, divides into two categories: Horatian and Juvenalian. Named after two different Roman satirists, Horace and Juvenal, their own methodologies of societal critique broke down into two camps, humor and outrage, Horace the former and Juvenal the latter. Most of what people think of in Satire derives from the Horatian camp, such as a Jonathan Swift or Stephen Colbert. However, dystopia is actually satire (Juvenalian) as well, and I doubt many would call “Brave New World” humorous. Almost every form of dystopia fits into the mold of Juvenalian, whether it is “Metropolis”, “Fahrenheit 451”, “1984”, “A Handmaid’s Tale”, or “Blade Runner”, none of them take the dissolution of society in a miserable authoritarian regime as a joke. This modus operandi of dystopia is why “Brazil” is such a shock and delight. While many films/novels invoke a somber malaise in their portrayal of the world gone wrong, “Brazil” opts to have comedy emerge from the characters and plot events.
The film is a brilliant mix of idiosyncratic characters, oneiric sequences, and insane happenstance to create a surrealist dystopian world that borders on absurdist theatre in some scenes. The dystopia is one in which efficiency is the absolute moral good of the society, and everything else is an impediment. The result is a crippling bureaucracy that requires enormous amounts of paperwork and absolute diligence, as well as an overreliance on technology. The film makes it clear throughout it that this ideal is far from the reality. The workers joke around and do nothing unless the boss is watching, and the paperwork so central to the system functioning almost always ends up causing delays and backlogs instead of expediting the process. This is a major source of the humor. The “efficiency” consistently backfires in hilarious ways, often through the black/slapstick comedy reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s origins in Monty Python. It is done to such efficacy that the result is event more disconcerting. The characters mix up names of their children, destroy things without a second thought, and ruin other people’s lives, all with a flippant smile. People say such presumptuous, erroneous things with confidence that one can not help but to laugh at times. The comedy is used to show how impersonal the system is, and just how strange and how ineffective it is compared to what a viewer would expect.
The protagonist, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is trapped in the world, but begins the story content within it. His estrangement is visible from the start, his wild imagination, which often manifests as dreams, also highlights his mind in contrast to the mechanical, highly perfunctory world around him. His imagination as contrast to the state is where the meat of the film’s analysis on dystopia lies. Despite participating in the dystopia, even working in government, Sam is incompatible with it because of his imagination. This sets up a larger dichotomy between the two forces: the mechanical autocracy and the imaginations of others. Lowry loses faith in the system because he dared to have an imagination. His true feelings about the world is also shown through his exasperation with his mother, a strict adherent to the state’s ideals. His disillusionment begins when he experiences the dystopia’s glaring flaws for himself. The most important things are the mishandling of the Buttle case, his mother’s onerous expectations, and his allure for a woman who rebels against the state. Coupled with various examples of bureaucratic mishandling, eventually Lowry comes to reject everything that is in the society he lives in.
However, “Brazil” is still firmly rooted in the dystopian tradition. Orwell’s “1984” is a clear precedent. There is a lot of Winston in Lowry. They both rebel from the state initially almost by accident, and their sedition slowly evolves into a deliberate attempt to undermine and even overthrow the government. It also has “Brave New World” elements. People focus on vacuous pursuits that are just a diversion to avoid people thinking about the regime in place. The nuance is rather than is focus on pleasure, it is on being ahead technologically and chic. Lowry’s mother is the most overt example; her facial reconstruction surgery makes her look like a clown, a not so subtle jab directed at everyone in society who follows the rules as obsequiously.
