Hellscape Society

 The movie Brazil was filled with poignant critiques of modern society and even more specifically economic systems. There seems to be infinite rabbit holes one could go down exploring all the messages that were delivered throughout this movie. Most prominently, Brazil was illustrating a society that was uninspired and oppressed by an authoritarian regime that comprised of ineffective procedure centric institutions, namely the Ministry of Information. Coinciding with the time Brazil was released in theaters, was the rise of the New Public Management movement (Callen & Austin, 2016).. The NPM movement heavily utilized technology while employing private enterprise methods in the attempts to provide vital services to the public in an efficient manner.  Just behind the obvious motifs of an oppressive authoritarian government, is the depiction of economic systems and how the pursuit of a utopic society solely through technology can ultimately result in a dystopic hellscape. Throughout Brazil, the characters seem to have delusions of grandeur as there are two realities being presented. One is the current state of a dilapidated society and the other of a dream society where it is widely believed that they are well on their way to achieving perfection.  The dream society is where most of the main characters reside.  In this stark contrast between the real and the dream, us as the audience are able observe concepts that revolve around heterotopias. In analyzing the movie through the lens of heterotopia, we can see the correlation between the pursuit of techno-utopia and societies of control. 

The movie is shown through the view of Sam Lowry, an uninspired man who is intelligent but who also possesses a high amount of apathy. This is depicted through his low status at the Ministry of Information. Ironically given his low status within the institution, Sam seems reluctant to advance his career any further. Despite the apathy, he is incredibly detailed oriented and is effective at his job. This is in direct contrast to the rest of his cohorts as they are largely obsessed with task completion and not so much with quality, which appears to be illustrative of how the rest of this fictitious authoritarian regime operates. The Ministry of Information has a central role in the operations of the government as they are an all encompassing collection, intelligence, policing, and planning agency. The employees rely heavily on technology that humorously only Sam Lowry appears to know how to operate. This seemingly incompetent government is also oppressive to the people in which it supposedly serves. 

The essence of the movie can be captured through Sam's lucid dreams. These dreams revolve around Sam embodying a divine form attempting to rescue an imprisoned woman. He appears to be the only one capable of saving this damsel in distress, illustrative of the fact of his growing awareness regarding the real. The dreams compliment other events in the plot, beginning with the unfortunate arrest and later death of Archibald Buttle. These dreams continue upon the introduction of Archibald "Harry" Tuttle, an unlicensed contractor that is able to fix his AC problem and the person for whom Archibald Buttle was mistaken for. Harry represents the alternative and effective solution to the governments ineffective Central Services. Harry has the capacity to bond with Sam and fix his air conditioning. Sam through chance happening, sees the woman from dreams, Jill Layton. It is through meeting Jill that Sam's dreams play out in reality as he pursues his utopia. Jill is wanted through the Ministry of Information, and it is Sam's pursuit of protecting her in the hopes of marrying her. During Sam's journey with Jill, we see Sam's dreams becoming inversely related. As Sam is closer to rescuing Jill in his dreams, he is farther away from it in reality. Soon the dreams become purposefully entangled with the real, only as the audience do we discover after numerous intense encounters with the police from the Ministry of Information that Jill has been killed and Sam has descended into madness while being tortured. This inverse relation between Sam's dreams and his reality depicts his growing conscious awareness of the real and the proverbial veil of utopia being lifted from over his eyes giving way to the oppressive reality. 

I feel that the movie Brazil is incredibly relevant today as we seem to be inventing new technologies in the hopes to advance society. I have witnessed what feels like a growing disconnect amongst people who if it were not for technology would be forced to interact. Interactions and even more so, relationships require effort and time which is not desirable in today's fast pace. This void created by the loss of interaction and fostering of social bonds is filled with increased consumption of material goods. Hyper-consumerism allows people to manufacture their own reality further sinking us into this fabled existence. As this progresses it feels that our ability to interact and create bond ultimately atrophies, making us more reliant on technology. I would classify this as a dark comedy, as I think it is the best way to deliver the message. 

The concept of heterotopia, especially as it pertains to technology acknowledges both the benefits as well as the drawbacks to it. Heterotopia is a both/and concept and helps illuminate contemporary societies relationship with new technology implementation and our desired goals from its subsequent implementation. It helps identify an over reliance on technology complimented by the absence of formal socio-structure. Essentially this should be interpreted as technology coupled with societies inflated expectations results in an ill-fated process of creating technology that can operate with lessening human or social guidance, ultimately resulting in an increasingly error prone operation. Through heterotopia, it becomes apparent that the illusion of the perfect society can exist in a temporal or a spatial sense. In comparison with the other, that a small amount of time or space can bring a tangible sense of perfection in which people can believe that it is attainable (Vidler, Foucalt, Johnston, 2014) Society can become oppressed by its own ambitions for perfection. As our dependence increases on technology, so to does our inability to function without it. Heterotopia occupies both perfection and failure simultaneously. Heterotopia can shift the perspective of society away from being technology centric to being able to create a more harmonious balance between society and technology. 

Brazil was able to incorporate the concept of heterotopia by depicting the very opposite. Its depiction of a society that mirrored New Public Management by being obsessed with the promise of technology to deliver them to a better albeit illusionary sense of reality (Callen & Austin, 2016). This unattainable notion of better is centered around efficiency in the way of time and money saved, while also being effective by not work plagued with errors. This gives way to the reality of the situation of a decaying society where no amount of technology alone can fix it. However, there is a thin veil to be able to perpetuate the facade. Through the movie characters seem to experience brief moments of utopia, enough so that they can be convinced that it is real when they discuss personal wealth, or job promotion (Delueze, 1990). These have been the metrics for which perfection has been based upon and that they can offset the lack of ability to utilize technology to improve the real. In the pursuit of this utopia, governance becomes narrowed in focus and is obsessed with monetary currency, so much so it become oppressive to ensure the continuation of the illusion.