Brazil

Da da da de-da de-da Brazil.

While re-watching this goddamn masterpiece of a movie three things occurred. First, I had a strange almost deja-vu sensation in relating it to Bioshock, the mixture of '40s noir and loony futurism that places the whole film beyond a realm were it could become dated. La Mer now occupies the same space in my head as the films theme (previously it reminded me of Funny Bones, another excellent film, but I digress somewhat).

Secondly, I realised I've no idea where the twist in the movie happens. On the face of it, it seems obvious, but the clearly unreal begins well before that. I think that's the genius of the piece, Lowry's real is world is so fantastical that it's hard to tell where it ends and the dreams begin, and Gilliam ramps the distortion up so delicately that the ending is actually a lot more ambiguous than I remembered.

Thirdly, I realised I was somewhat harsh in my opinion of Inception, simply because it failed, essentially, to be Brazil. Or to be more precise, to be half of Brazil. Gilliam's films all deal with perception and reality (which is largely how films work) and all of them deal with it in a more interesting way than Nolan's, which is more accurately a clever action film.

All this is quite aside from the spectacular and effective 1984, Kafkaesque nightmare world he presents, with Deniro's vigilante plumber (that idea alone is mind blowing) and Michael Palin playing among the finest monsters committed to film. "Is that one of your triplets?" "Yeah, probably".

My favourite Gilliam film, on the basis that it was the last one I saw. Aside from the Crimson Permanent Insurance, of course. It can be manly in insurance, we'll up your premiums semi-annually.