Welcome to Auteur, a newsletter that dives deep into the world of film and asks: What can we, as brand builders, learn from this? Published every other week, each edition takes a film of our guest’s choosing, and extracts the creative lessons.
Film is one of the richest mediums we have for understanding how narrative, aesthetics, and language can be woven together to move an audience, and this is an ambition that lies at the heart of what we do as designers, marketers, and strategists.
Thank you for joining us. Auteur is written and curated by Thursday—a strategic design studio based in the architectural city of Winchester. We work globally with the ethos that being different isn’t enough—what truly matters is being interesting.
This week’s guest is Rebecca Magnus.
“I’m a brand builder for startups shaking up the status quo. The ones doing stuff that make you say ‘oh wow, that’s a bit weird.’ They’re solving big problems, but they’ve no idea how to talk about what they do. I help them normalise their weirdness just enough to provoke new conversations, hype cycles and behaviours.”
You can see more of Rebecca’s work here:
- LinkedIn
- www.magnusand.co
Introducing Brazil (1985).
“An utterly human, and humane film. And in an age of algorithms, it stands out as a mad scream as it plunges into the AI slop abyss. It’s just fucking magnificent.” Rebecca Magnus
We’re back from our summer break!
When I saw Brazil had a 98% rating on the notoriously harsh reviews website Rotten Tomatoes, my interest was piqued. Next, a quick scan of Wikipedia described it as a “dystopian science fiction black comedy film”. My strategy brain, which favours singularity and specificity, started whirring: How could one film be so many things? I went in expecting a feast for my senses and that’s exactly what I got.
The film opens with an explosion. Through the inferno, a TV glitches but remains functional, showing a plump politician with an uncharacteristically thick moustache. He’s condemning the increase in terrorist bombings and espousing the importance of “information retrieval”—which I soon realise is doublespeak for authoritarian control, enforced through endless paperwork and red tape.
From here, the film unfolds to be a fantastical commentary on the ills of society and government, through the absurd story of a disenchanted government worker, Sam Lowry. Sam accidentally becomes embroiled in a government investigation while searching for a woman he first saw in his dreams.
Rachel considers the film to be completely one-of-a-kind:
“Terry Gilliam is a truth teller – he shares profound human truths through absurdist humour. And no film of his does it better than Brazil IMO. It’s a completely ridiculous film about bureaucracy, a rogue plumber and air duct repair, which also speaks to love, fear, human dignity and freedom in the face of governmental tyranny. You’ll never look at an air duct or a governmental form the same way again after this film. It’s all set within a beautifully detailed world – a brilliant mix of dystopian urban futurism and 30s nostalgia, with a generous sprinkling of 1984-esque bureaucratic horror.
I love this film because it’s beautifully camp, coldly terrifying, and deeply weird. No AI would write this script. No Netflix producer would commission this lunacy. It’s so , so completely absurd and heartbreaking, it’s a true one-off of a film. With an ending that will either leave you sobbing, furious or smiling, depending on your interpretation and views on human liberty.”
After a recommendation like that, you won’t be surprised to hear this was a film brimming with insights for us, as storytellers. I hint at the plot and a few scenes, but there are no spoilers that will affect your watch.
The Big Idea: Keep Dreaming
Every great film—like every great brand—is anchored by a defining concept or conversation it can own. Here, I explore a central idea from the film, and play with how it could translate into a brand context.
Brazil is a deliberately unruly exploration of society and the human condition—somewhat too big to neatly distil into a single idea.
It chews on everything from the failure of technology designed to make our lives better, to the insidious nature of government censorship and propaganda.
Gilliam seems to be saying that in the face of all of the above—1984-style bureaucratic control—society becomes numb and lifeless. Take my favourite scene, for instance, where a bomb rips through a restaurant and yet Sam, our protagonist, and his mother, keep calm and carry on with their meals, ignoring the screams and dismembered diners.
The only force that cuts through this collective indifference, is Sam’s dreams and what they lead him to do. In the face of abject injustice and suffering, Sam finds solace in his elaborate daydreams where he soars through the skies, donning Icarus-like wings and slaying monsters in pursuit of his damsel in distress.
His search for his dream woman in reality is what injects vitality into the film and chaos into the government-controlled system he lives in. His imagination is the one thing that feels alive in Gilliam’s grey, robotic world, leading us to the central idea: we must keep dreaming. Our dreams, and therefore our creativity, are the only things that cannot be controlled or contained.
Why it Works: If Brazil were a brand, it would embody the Rebel archetype. Its power comes from embracing contradiction: dreams come to life in reality, slapstick comedy collides with oppressive violence. In an era when creativity is reduced to logical AI prompts, Brazil reminds us that the wild, human imagination is both the antidote and the differentiator.
What Brazil (1985) teaches us about brand.
Lesson 1: Process can be deadly
“Listen, this old system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27B/6... Bloody paperwork.”
One of the most insidious elements of Brazil isn’t necessarily violence or terrorism—it’s paperwork. Take our rogue, freedom-fighting plumber Tuttle (played by Robert De Niro) who after resisting government arrest for the entire film, and emerging as a sort of Robin Hood, ends up vanishing beneath an avalanche of paperwork.
Take our rogue, freedom-fighting plumber Tuttle (played by Robert De Niro): after resisting government arrest for the entire film, and emerging as a sort of Robin Hood figure, he ultimately vanishes beneath an avalanche of paperwork.
Gilliam is pointing to the absurdity of systems that obsess over process and leave no room for humanity. This even extended to his filmmaking, as he once said: “I do everything in my power to keep things from falling into neat little slots.”
Insight: In branding as in life, the more you force everything through process, the more you risk suffocating the spark. Process brings order, yes, but speak to your creatives. Ask what they need to stay inspired. More than that, if a left-field idea comes to the table that isn’t strictly connected to a brief, embrace it.
Lesson 2: Backgrounds speak louder than words
Gilliam’s world is oppressive by design. It’s steel, industrial, flat, and rectangular. Propaganda posters display slogans like “Suspicion Breeds Confidence” and “Loose Talk is Noose Talk”. Offices resemble interrogation chambers more than workplaces. Even the “futuristic” technology is unreliable and absurd—Sam’s computer has a giant magnifying lens strapped onto a tiny screen, making it simultaneously advanced and obsolete.
Hordes of men shuttle around in packs, indistinguishable in their matching grey suits and hats, with uninspired facial expressions that make them feel more like sheep than people.
The attention to detail is extraordinary. Every background choice amplifies the central idea of a highly controlled society. More often than not, it’s the context that does the storytelling, more than the dialogue.
Insight: Don’t underestimate the stage you set. Whether it’s a product page or a campaign environment—context shapes how your audience feels before you’ve even spoken. How can you better situate your audience in whatever brand touchpoint you’re creating, so the setting itself reinforces the story you want to tell?
Lesson 3: Fantasy gives you endless options
Brazil is a fantasy film at its core, and Gilliam uses it as the lens through which to show us truth. He uses heightened, fantastical versions of reality to make his underlying critique sharper.
The great thing about dreams and fantasy is that anything is possible. You don’t need to overblow or falsify reality—you can use imagination to express a deeper truth more compellingly than facts ever could.
For brands, the parallel is clear. Authenticity matters—you never want to mislead—but fantasy gives you permission to break free from plain description and show what your product or service makes possible. This is especially powerful if you’re selling something standardised or B2B: the injection of imagination can transform the mundane.
Insight: Don’t limit yourself to the literal. If your product or service risks sounding predictable, find the fantasy element—the imaginative leap that captures attention and expresses your truth in a more interesting way.
Closing Thoughts
Brazil is many things at once—satire, critique, comedy, fantasy—and it’s able to achieve such depth because of its unbridled commitment to creativity.
For us as storytellers, the lesson is clear: keep dreaming. Don’t let process or predictability flatten your creativity. Use setting to immerse your audiences, and try to find the fantasy element—even the most standard product can become extraordinary through the lens of imagination.
Thank you for reading. I’d love to hear if—and how—this made you think differently about your own approach to brand-building.
Until next time,
Shopé