I spent New Year’s eve in Brazil. Not the country, however. Although Brazil is a country in South America, that nation had nothing to do with my celebration, and has nothing to do with this column. "Brazil" is also the name of a Christmas movie/social commentary film about the current state of affairs in our country, created with disturbing prescience back in the early 1980’s by a one-time Monty Pythoner, Terry Gilliam. The film’s title comes from a song repeated in snyppets and fragments throughout its narrative, and the nation of Brazil is most definitely not the locale for the film. The film portrays a fictional world around Christmas time, which is defined by a breathtaking cinematic hue of grey and sludge, and it was this film in which I was embroiled as last year became this year. As the clouds behind the opening credits melted away, I soon realized that all lawyers, judges, and other legally impacted folk needed to know about Gilliam’s "Brazil."
It's not easy to find "Brazil" because it exists in multiple incarnations. Filmed for theatrical release, the movie has now been distributed in at least four different versions, with drastically different endings and resulting interpretations. Available on pay per view, dvd, and across the Internet, the versions all have points to be made.
Like the laws that govern our society, the version of "Brazil" which I viewed (which I believe, but would not swear, was the director’s cut) is an interwoven tapestry of themes which complement and contrast each other, working together and tearing each other apart to make way for a new framework. It is both pointed direct commentary and allegory, focusing on a longtime government worker, Sam Lowry, who decides to try and make more of himself as a means to land a woman he does not know, but has been dreaming about.
Sam is, in a lot of respects, representative of the modern lawyer. Most of his actual work is a cog in a bigger machine, comprised of mindnumbing reviews of records. Yet, he has his dreams – dreams in which he successfully conquers his oppressors and flies to his loving damsel’s rescue, emerging the triumphant hereo.
The girl of Sam’s dreams is real enough, and is being hunted by the government after being mistaken for a terrorist. That hunt also shines light on the lawyer's role of protector of the innocent in this day of safety-initiated short cuts, and the government in "Brazil" parallels our own as it employs invasive arrest techniques, and “questioning” of innocents without consent or counsel in a constant war on the terrorism it declares its enemy.
The movie’s structure employs unique artifices, such as interviews heard in the background, and posters and slogans seen on walls. Like today's economy, government, foreclosure on civil liberties, and the tightening of the legal system, "Brazil" rolls industrialization, terrorism, government control, bureaucracy, plastic surgery, love, filmmaking and, above all, an inescapable comment that the world is the result of overwhelming ineptitude, into one distracting, yet intriguing, plot. The story moves slow at times, just as our legal system, and is thus not for those who want explosions at every corner (although there is a fair amount of fire, smoke and explosive reactions).
Yet, "Brazil" will strike a chord in the souls of its lawyer viewers because it serves to capture the abject frustration of the seeming inability to achieve goals that seem right and reachable, and an inability to correct or at least affect a system that is not working correctly. In so doing, it sets out an outline of the problems we need to fix, and the obstacles we need to overcome, as we endeavor to walk down this new road we call 2012. After all, as lawyers, it's what we do. Best of wishes for the year to come.
© 2012 under analysis LLC. Charles Kramer is a principal of the St Louis law based law firm Riezman Berger, P.C. under analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. Comments or criticisms about this column can be sent to the Levison Group c/o this newspaper or direct via email to comments@levisongroup.com.