Sam Lowry, the main character of the film, lives a monotonous life working for the government. This is a government that holds absolute control over those under its wing, who live in this unidentified land in the film. The whole mess is sprinkled with authoritarian posters, fascist posters and mottos and many, many ducts. Credited among the top 100 best British movies, Terry Gilliam’s 1985 portrayal of a non-conformist’s battle against a totalitarian authority is satirical and, at times, morose in the creative ways that it shows Lowry’s journey in finding this dream girl of his and the government’s clumsy and excessive strategies of retaliation.
From the very beginning, a TV that was set on fire following an explosion shows a government minister being interviewed about a decade-old battle against terrorism, to which he dismisses it as “bad sportsmanship” and says that they are close to defeating them. The burning TV indicates a disordered, hazardous government. A government that seizes inexorable control over its citizens whenever they want and spreads propaganda among them with posters not unlike those during war times. This is present in the way the government intruded Mr. Buttle’s home through the roof, a sardonic answer
to the little girl’s question of how Santa Claus was coming into their house, and apprehended him, then only asking Mrs. Buttle to sign papers of “consent”. This gives the citizens a false sense of free choice with decisions. They also spread messages like “Who can you trust” and “Don’t suspect a friend, report him”, breeding uncertainty among the people.
“Mind that parcel; Eagle eyes can save lives.”
There is also a selfishness in the way there are “Consumers for Christ” boards around the city during Christmas, telling the people that they are buying presents and apparel not for commercial profit, but is instead the people’s religious sacrosanctity. Finally, during the scene where Tuttle saves Sam from being tortured by Jack Lint, there is a poster up that says “Happiness: we’re all in it together”. It’s like some sort of weakness of the government, seeing as no other motto throughout the film uses any words like ‘we’ or ‘us’ that indicate an affiliation between them and the people. It’s like the government telling the people, “Hey, if you guys are happy, you better include us in the group.”
Sam Lowry is an interesting character as he has one foot in the ‘rebel’ side and the other in the ‘common’ side. He works for the government yet at work
he watches Casablanca at his desk. He denies any promotion offered by his mother, wanting to stay low-key, yet in one of the scenes where him and Mr. Kurtzmann are talking, Sam is sitting in his boss’ seat issuing commands. He eventually ends up being promoted to the Information Retrieval sector, so as to find out more information about his dream girl Jill Layton. The higher-ups begin to notice this and when Sam goes up to his new boss Mr. Warrenn, all of Mr. Warrenn’s followers and himself look upon Sam with arrogant glances. The room Sam is given is tight and grey, belittling and depressing. He even has to play tug of war with his colleague next door for table space. On the door that leads into Sam’s room is an alpha-numeric nameplate, a feature that dehumanizes him. Sam’s attempts to befriend Jill tie him into the whole “Tuttle terrorism” debacle. Its interesting that the two characters, Jill and Tuttle, that are the only ones in the story with American accents are also the fugitive terrorists.
Despite all the obstacles, Sam dreams of an ethereal land where he flies freely in shining armor and sees the angelic lady, who we find out is Jill Layton, trapped inside a cage. The pack of hunched, mourning creatures and a seemingly impregnable samurai warrior that impedes Sam’s rescue are symbols of society and the government respectively. We see during the bombing scene that as Sam walks through the victims, they pull at the cuff of his pants and moan like the creatures in his dreams. Then there is the part where Sam is fighting the government soldiers and they turn into the samurai warrior. Its like everyone is pushing Sam and Jill apart, and eventually we learn Jill was shot by one of the soldiers. Sam and Jill appear to be one the other: from the mirror scene we can see Sam and his reflection instead of Sam and Jill.
And with the part earlier of how Sam has a foot in the ‘common’ side, where he follows the norms of society and is irrelevant, he appears behind the mask of the samurai warrior in another of his dreams. Its like Sam and Jill are actually just the two personalities of Sam, like he’s schizophrenic. At the very end we see Sam in a catatonic delirium, which is closely related to schizophrenia, humming the song Brazil, saying that he could not live in a reality without freedom, without Jill.
"There’s one thing that I’m certain of
Return I will to old Brazil."
