BRAZIL ; where hearts entertain in june

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ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A CRACKED MIND

by Ayşegül DOĞAN (haziran 2006)

Sam Lowry is a man who is working in the department of record and he works on papers and forms. Lowry has a life in an apartment, which is surrounded by wipes and a weirdly useless technology, and this apartment is in a city where everywhere is full with buildings, skyscrapers and wipes (again).He lives in a world where individualism is not welcomed but to be a part of the system and have a standardized life is accepted. But Sam has another place to live; a place where he can be anything he wants, even a bird and a place where he can live (fly) and be with the girl he dreamed of. That place is happened to be his dreams which is about to be disrupted by the modernist world.

In modernist world, there is huge effort to standardize everything- for example one type presents and meals standardized through numbering, one type offices and numbered workers, women who have cosmetic surgeries-another try to become all the same woman with same faces,(if they don’t live complications in complications).

In this world, terrorism is so normal; no one does anything when a bomb explodes near to them at the restaurant. People lose their sensitivity and interest. Industrialism grows as the skyscrapers grow in front of Sam in his dreams like a big obstacle between Jill and Sam. Modernism makes people lose their humanity rather makes them eternal workers.

Buttle is a real hero for Sam because he is becoming the person whom Sam would be like; he is not working for the system, free and determinant. He likes to be free and that’ the reason why he chooses to live like a fugitive, he doesn’t want to be kept by “Bloody paperwork”.

The Government’s Central Services is a giant system. Whole system is like a living organism and the wipes which are everywhere are like veins in the human body. We even get a feeling that it breathes.

In my opinion, the song “Brazil” is the most important symbol of freedom. When Sam asks Harry Tuttle why do Ministry of Information looks for him, Tuttle does not answer, he mumbles the song of Brazil, the song of freedom. Sam listens to the same song while he is going to the apartment of the Buttle’ s which leads Sam to his realization that he is actually in the wrong side of the battle. After going to the apartment he finds Jill and Jill is again another symbol of love, beauty but most of all freedom; a flying woman in the sky. However Sam later finds out that that freedom has been closed to a cage like Sam’s freedom. He tries to reach that freedom with the weapons of the system: getting in to the Information Retrieval. But this will be the beginning of his end because he will understand he is only fighting against himself. We can see it in the scene, which Sam fights with Samurai, wins and takes the mask of Samurai off and sees himself- killed by himself.

After this point Sam figures out that the only way to be free is to leave the system otherwise it will digest him. The horrible baby faces and and Mr. Kurtzman figure who says don’t leave me, all the people in black, dirty clothes and chains which make them look like slaves and victims of the system, looking for their rights: “what have you done with his body?” All these images make Sam to judge the world he is living in and realize that he is not happy with it. There is something terrible about it. All the bureaucracy, standardization, modernization and industrialization and technology makes people to forget to live their lives but work endlessly for the government, which tries to control everything using a huge information gathering system like in the novel of George Orwell-1984. In this book, there is a system, which enables government to see and know what every single person does. With this system, of course, the head of the system –big brother- can control people. People who run after the boss in the Information Retrieval are a very good example of the type that works for the systems and controlled by the system.

On the other hand, there is a different type like Buttle who doesn’t work for or controlled by the system. But not working for system doesn’t mean terrorism as Sam understands later. It’s only trying to live. There is not a clear distinction between a terrorist and a person who is not working for the system in the movie, maybe this is because the system doesn’t want people to think that there is a way to live like this. This is the reason why government makes all that propaganda about telling that you can only trust the ministry or the central services or another extension of government.

Buttle gives his personal war against this system believing that “We’ re all in it together”. Close to the final of the story, Sam believes it too and begins his personal war.

The relationships between characters are not very pleasant too. Sam and Mr. Kurtzman’s relationship is the closest thing to a real friendship in the movie. But it happens to be broken too. At the beginning of the movie, we think that Jack is a friend of Sam but a friend cannot torture his friends as far as I know. The system presents Jack as a reliable man that a person can trust but Tuttle as a terrorist. Jack tortures Sam; Tuttle saves Sam from hard situations and says, “Call me Harry”. Now, it’ s time to repeat the ministry’s flier: “Who can you trust?”

At the end of the movie Sam finds the right side of the battle and fights against the system, against its weapons(papers), and against its soldier(the men who walks down the ladder like in the movie “The Battleship Of Potemkin” and dressed like imperial soldiers in the movie “Star Wars”). But he can’t save Tuttle from being digested by papers so the system. Later we understand that this battle is only in the mind of Sam. Neither Tuttle nor Mr.Helpmann (wait a minute, he supposed help, he is the head executer of the Ministry Of Information ) can’t save Sam from being arrested and lose the connection with the world. But it looks like Sam wouldn’t be disturbed with the world outside he will be able to live freely in his inner life. Sam is now free in his mind and no commercial, flier or propaganda can leak to his brain anymore.

About the atmosphere created by the director; The colors in the real world Sam lives in, grey is the dominant color and everything is dark or if they are not dark it is untidy; there are too many things everywhere but not organized or gathered. This makes a claustrophobic atmosphere. But in the contrary, in Sam’s dreams atmosphere is very relaxing and beautiful colors like yellow, red, green and white are all we see. The sky can only be seen in Sam’s dreams or the green valleys and white clouds; it is impossible to see them in the real world.

Sam is an ordinary person who tries to live happy like everybody. All the trouble he faces is because he looks for happiness outside the system.
He had to play the game by its rules in order to be not get hurt. But it’s impossible in the world of Sam for a man like Sam. Now he could only be happy in his mind and meet with Jill. Who knows? Maybe they are going to the Brazil with the truck Jill drives in Sam’s mind; where hearts entertain in June.

Ayşegül Doğan.

~ by Aysegul Doğan on May 2, 2007.