What to watch on HBO Max: One of Robert De Niro’s best films is this quirky cyberpunk satire on the insane maze of bureaucracy

The language of cyberpunk is becoming more and more widespread in our culture with the greater acceptance and investment in the science fiction genre, but nevertheless many of the keys continue to escape for both viewers and those who approach it. It is disconcerting to see some works that sell themselves as cyberpunk (and insisting on selling is not very cyberpunk) but their vision is reduced to futuristic buildings and neon lights.

Because the keys to a dystopia of this kind are not aesthetic, or simply have the appearance of ‘bladerunner‘. It is an evolution of the transgressive and restless character of science fiction, which tries to create fantasies that can explain our reality. In this case, the uncontrolled development of technology and the oppressive control of corporations that exert through it, aligning the individual towards insane extremes. Something we can find in movies like ‘Brazilian‘.

bureaucratic labyrinth

The film, available at streaming via HBO Max Y Movistar+introduces us to a distant and depressing future. The authorities and extensions of the State have thrown themselves completely into the regime of technology, guiding their decisions by it without the slightest scrutiny. Hence, the slightest error in a computer can cause a father of a family to be assassinated because his surname has been placed in place of one of the most persecuted terrorists by the system, whom he gives life to. Robert DeNiro.

In those circumstances lives Sam Lowry (Jonathan Price), a dull gray bureaucrat as efficient as he is jaded by his life, as much for his mechanical and oppressive work as for the insistent comments of his mother. Despite her disillusioning and chaotic environment (or perhaps because of it) she dreams of fantasies where she escapes from everything and takes on a heroic form, and also hopes one day to be able to leave with the girl of her dreams (Kim Greist). .

However, there is little heroic and epic in what we are going to see. Terry Gilliam employs oppressive architectural designs and the air of post-industrial despair typical of the cyberpunk theme (as well as its anti-establishment message), but revolutionizes them in a whirlwind full of black comedy and satire that manages to make everything more biting.

‘Brazil’: whirlwind of satire and dystopia

Clearly inspired by George Orwell’s ‘1984’, Gilliam puts his finger on consumer trends, the obsession with technology and how the bureaucracy ends up putting you in a spiral of madness from which one cannot come out well. Advances have made paperwork and apartment labyrinths even more insane rather than more accessible.

All this through a story that is not afraid to embrace the crazy image nor does it require a very clean aesthetic to create oppression. Still quite analog technology, pipes everywhere and a lot of dirt that configure the personality of ‘Brazil’ when it comes to interpreting cyberpunk. One of the most unique films of the genre and one of the most amazing of Gilliam’s career.

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What to watch on HBO Max: One of Robert De Niro’s best films is this quirky cyberpunk satire on the insane maze of bureaucracy