Brazil, 1985, directed by Terry Gilliam, written by Terry
Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. In Brazil, Terry Gilliam
asks the audience to imagine a world where the government wages a never-
ending war with shadowy terrorists, a world where civil liberties are being
destroyed in the name of security, a world where torture becomes official
state policy in order to conduct more efficient interrogations of suspected
terrorists. What's more, in Gilliam's fictional world, the central
government is not just secretive but incompetent. Mistakes are made,
leading to the imprisonment and torture of innocents. Most offensive of
all, Gilliam implies that such a government could exist without its
citizens staging an armed revolt. I'm usually willing to suspend disbelief,
but this goes too entirely too far.
Via Jason Kottke,
#51:
Brazil
Yeah, he's right—a government like that could never happen.
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