Brazil (1984, M)

Dir: Terry Gilliam, UK/USA, 142mins, 35mm

It might be 1984, or 1948, or somewhere inside the head of Monty Python animator-turned-director Terry Gilliam. But wherever, low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is having a bad day, week and lifetime: put upon by his plastic surgery addicted mother, by a pair of building maintenance men who can dismantle but can’t fix anything, and by those who want Sam to make a terrible bureaucrat error go away. There are only two bright spots in his life: a beautiful woman who look likes like the angel he has recurring dreams about; and ‘cat’ repairman Tuttle (Robert de Niro), whose efficiency has caused him to be branded as a terrorist.

Although it might be more ‘diesel punk’, and its debt to film noir, George Orwell and The Third Man are manifest, Gilliam’s eccentric then, but cult now, movie has become one of the canonical visual texts of the steampunk movement.

New ‘Director’s Cut’ print, courtesy of the Academy Film Archive and presented as part of their ‘Film-to-Film’ Project.

Arc Outdoors screening: Special ticket prices apply. Doors open at 7 pm for a sunset start (approx. 8.30 pm).