Films You Should Like (as Much as I do): Brazil, part 1

I saw my first movie in college. Well, no, ok, I'd watched movies before, that's not what I meant. Let's back up.

I spent most of my first semester in college alone in my room with my computer. That or traveling back and forth from my home town to hang out with my high school friends.

My only contact with humans at school were my roommate, when I went to class, and a kid who went to my highschool that I hung our with despite having almost nothing in common.

My roommate basically vanished during the day for the first week, only occasionally coming in and passing out in the early hours of the morning. Eventually he stopped coming back altogether. Once a girl came by made up for a date and waited for him for hours. We barely spoke, but given the circumstances I got the impression that she'd been invited there to meet me. Like my roommate was trying to set us up. I played Wow as she sat on his bed. He came back finally and they left together. Later that night they had sex in the bed across the room from me while I pretended to sleep. It's hard to say if I was more embarrassed or relieved. I never saw them together again. Much later I learned he had been expelled.

I stopped going to classes maybe a month in. For the first semester it had remarkably little effect on my grades, but things got bad fast in the second.

My highschool “friend” regularly kicked me out of his room. I don't blame him, I was basically there to mooch off his playstation and convince myself I had a pal. I even joined a fraternity (ok a service frat) that he did out of desperation.

As I lost contact with people I got more depressed which meant I spent more time in bed and less with people.

It got pretty bad.

Then one day I went to lunch. Ok, most days I went to lunch, sure. This time though while I prepared to shove food into myself as quickly as possible and run back to my room I got invited to join a table with my hometown compadre and some other dude with long hair and a lot of opinions.

Man I got into the weeds here. The point is I made a weird friend with a crazy energy about him and a willingness to argue about anything.

At some point I mentioned liking Time Bandits, and he recommended I check out Brazil. He had a copy so we watched it, and more importantly we argued about it.

I'd never been able to really argue before. Most of my highschool friends leaned conservative while I lean heavily liberal, so I'd mostly just avoided discussing anything more serious than Star Wars to keep from destroying those relationships.

But here was someone willing to actually engage me in arguments. Someone who took me seriously. It was a new concept for me.

The movie and the conversation we had helped me realize that if I wanted to have a life beyond highschool I was going to have to engage with people.

Eventually I made a lot of new friends at college, but that first movie has always felt like a turning point to me.

So, Brazil! That took forever to introduce, didn't it.

And now I need to work on my chapter for tomorrow, so this will need to be part one. Next time, why Brazil is worth your time!