The Miraculous Manu Memorial Movie Month, Mmmmm!

Brazil (1985)

Why is it so hard to make a great comedy movie? Oh, sure, there's plenty of stone-cold comedy classics, but they seem to operate in two modes: either they're a great movie that's intermittently funny and may or may not have a larger social critique attached (Modern Times, The Big Lebowski, Groundhog Day again, Dr. Strangelove,) or a hilarious comedy that nonetheless hardly leverages the tremendous potential of cinematic form and tends towards anarchic potshots (Airplane!, Blazing Saddles, Caddyshack, The Jerk, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, and my beloved Marx Brothers movies are hardly even movies, just filmed plays.) I prefer the latter category as a matter of taste, but there's this yawning void for movies that both make the grade as I would judge a non-comedic movie, and are still stuffed to the gills with gags from start to finish. This third category essentially consists of the movies in the Cornetto trilogy (especially The World's End) and Safety Last, to my knowledge.

I was really hoping that Terry Gilliam, with his Monty Python pedigree and his eye for fantastic imagery that's evident from the first few seconds of this film, would be the PERFECT man to make a movie that straddles the two categories. Indeed, for the first bit of the movie, it looks like this may be the case, as it builds up a delicate, precarious balance between screwball slapstick, satire, and elegance — thinking here in particular of the short scene where the breakfast-making machines pour tea on Sam's toast, so when Sam pours sugar into his tea he just drinks a load of sugar and when he tries to eat his toast it flops around uselessly in front of his face — but as the time passes you by, the laugh-out-loud moments diminish to zilch, so that the last leg, and the bulk really, of the movie is beautifully-made plot-driven action-adventure multi-hyphenate romp with a harsh, bitter edge. (Well, maybe I'll find what I'm looking for when I watch Playtime.)

This — not measuring up to my idiosyncratic and admittedly nearly impossible hopes and preconceived standards — is a wholly unfair criticism to make of the movie though, especially when it's a bit of a minor masterpiece regardless. The whole thing is wildly inventive and gorgeous, with an unstoppable momentum impressively extended over two and a half hours.

And sorry about not making a post for watching Eraserhead if you were looking forward to that, but I was at a total loss for words to explain, even summarize, that movie. Same for Apocalypse Now, which was more because it so completely knocked me on my ass and immediately rocketed into my top three favorite movies of all time — I might go back and make a properer post for that one. I hope I'm not getting, like, burnt out on these. I just wish I could be more consistently analytical and insightful for you guys.