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The original movie poster for BrazilLast night, I watched the movie Brazil, written by, among others, satirists Terry Gilliam (Monty Python) and Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead). The film was released in 1985 and is now part of The Criterion Collection.

I'm not really writing about the film, here, though; I'm more interested in one small difference between the cinema of 20 years ago and the cinema today: the hero. Of course, I'm no film critic, but I find the disparities intriguing.

Brazil highlights a near-futuristic dystopian society in which bureaucracy reigns supreme, paperwork is everywhere, and the totalitarian government tightly controls many aspects of everyday life. Despite this noble satirical effort, I found it very difficult to find a specific plot in the movie. A single main character was the spotlight of many scenes, but I don't think he followed any particular sequence of important events. He became caught in a number of situations about which he seemed, simply, utterly confused. The circumstances caused his actions, rather than him causing them.

This tells us the main character isn't a hero, per se, and that's perfectly fine. But, if you've seen any popular movies with similar motifs that have been released in this decade, you will have noticed the main character always wants something, and that character's actions provide an impetus that defines the story the movie is trying to tell.

Consider Children of Men, for example. Released in December of last year, it details a future in which humans can no longer procreate and the government of England attempts to control the disheartened populace by forcing otherwise ridiculous regulations upon them. Enter the naïve pregnant girl, the hero, who, along with a fair-weather faction of rebels, tries to achieve safe haven for the baby with the mythical Human Project. These rebels have a true goal with which the viewer can sympathize. Brazil does not even have this: there is no explicit objective; the protagonist just wanders through a sea of paperwork and silliness for two hours and 22 minutes.

I think we like watching a hero because it gives the film a purpose. That is, we want to be able to sympathize with somebody's cause in order to sit around for two hours and feel like something useful has happened. It gives us perspective. But, movies like Brazil do not have that. Quite a lot has changed in the film industry in the past 20 years, and it seems this is just one example of that.