While Gilliam's films away from Python-Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil and Munchausen-are noted for their wild designs and special effects, the stories each hinge on clashes between unyielding or oppressive social orders and the efforts of a visionary few to break through calcified modes of behavior and thinking.
No, they don't.
In Brazil, Sam Lowry isn't trying to break through any part of the bureaucratic future-retro police state in which he lives, he just wants to fly away and escape with the girl of his dreams. That's why the ending, as downbeat as it is, is so satisfying: Dramatically speaking, he gets what he deserves.
In Time Bandits, Kevin just wants to have an adventure, the dwarves just want to plunder the treasures of history. Frankly, the only character in the movie who is making any kind of an effort "to break through calcified modes of behavior and thinking" at all is...
...Evil. And he's vanquished in the end (if only temporarily) by a Supreme Being symbolized as a fusty schoolmaster-the very picture of a "calcified mode of behavior."
In Munchausen, okay, fair, I suppose you could say that the Baron and company are visionaries trying to break through the walls of what some call reality.
But saying that makes it sound like a much more argumentative, heavier film than it is, so let's not.
Finally, in Jabberwocky Dennis, like Sam, isn't trying to have any adventures, but the "oppressive social order" depicted in the film rewards him in spite of himself.
That's why the ending is so ironic.
Sorry, but few things ruffle my feathers like journalists twisting stories to fit their half-baked theories. I don't like it when they do it about the army or the republican party, and I certainly don't like it when they do it about two or three of my favorite movies...
2 comments:
Well said, well done.
Here's how the main characters clash against unyielding or oppressive social orders and their calcified modes of behavior and thinking:
BRAZIL: It's wrong to say Sam Lowry "isn't trying to break through any part of the bureaucratic future-retro police state in which he lives." He actively subverts the bureaucracy in order to track down his dream girl, and then uses his knowledge and access in order to try to save her by reprogramming her file to indicate she'd been killed. It's true he starts out as a mere paper pusher who doesn’t want to be bothered by the truth of what Information Retrieval actually does (torture people) and is happy to bow his head, watch films at the office, and escape into his fantasies, but he takes a stand (if only in his fantasies) and battles security forces (and their mythical stands-ins), blows up the ministry building - and even manages to tell his overbearing mother who has her plans for him to stuff it. The ending is downbeat not because "he gets what he deserves" but because the only way for his to ultimately survive against the oppressive social order far stronger than he is, is to go mad – to exist in an alternate reality of his own making.
TIME BANDITS: Young Kevin loves the world of imagination, history, myths – things his stuffy suburban parents have no interest in, because it's not on a TV game show. It's Kevin's boring suburban life against which he is butting up, and manages to escape. And while the Supreme Being has the air of a stuffy Cambridge don, his attitude and manner certainly diverge from the "calcified" view of the Christian deity.
MUNCHAUSEN: I'm not sure that saying the Baron and those who follow him weigh down the adventure and make it argumentative simply because they reject a world of reason in favor of fantasy. Besides, unlike "Brazil," they WIN, so how is that making it a "heavier" film?
JABBERWOCKY: Unlike his father, Dennis sees a future beyond the old ways of doing things. But his desires are also myopic – he adores a fat woman who cares nothing for him, and he is oblivious to the pretty princess who desires him. His ambitions take him to the City, where he tries to break into a closed system, and has little luck until by happenstance he becomes the squire – and rides home with the head of the monster. The overseers of the "oppressive social order" don’t reward Dennis in spite of himself (as if he were actively working against achieving fame and position); they reward him in spite of THEMSELVES (the merchant-class conspiracy to stop the dragon-slaying fails; Dennis is heralded for heroism when he actually behaved cowardly; the marriage of the princess to a common barrel-maker will probably do more to divide the kingdom than to preserve it). THAT'S why the ending is so ironic.
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