Brazil

Well, my first reaction to Brazil was pretty much WTF? It's definitely similar to Flaubert's Parrot in the sense that it's totally disjointed and confusing, and nothing comes together. All this random crap is just thrown in together, like the director was drunk or something. But like FP, it sort of grew on me, and I kind of liked it. That's not to say I had a clue what they were talking about.
The movie is supposed to be futuristic, but it was made 30 years ago, so there's a weird mix of antiques and imagined futurama. Sometimes the gadgets are fairly simlar to modern ones, and sometimes they are way off. What I find more interesting is how synically accurate the filmmakers are with respect to things like terrorism and beaucracy. Though we haven't reached the low point shown in the movie with these things, we are far closer than anyone would have imagined. The looming govermental buildings, gas-masked soldiers barging into homes, heavy mistrust, torture, and dehumanizing of everybody seems like WWII, which was probably intended. Covering the faces of victims (hanging grey bags) and torturers (baby mask) alike makes everything so impersonal it becomes much easier to do terrible things. Having the terrible things happen on a seemingly distant island helps too (Guantanamo Bay). Despite its creepy predictions, Brazil is still incredibly strange. What kind of messed up movie has a happy ending where the main characters, the lovers, are killed and tortured to insanity, respectively? The writer must have been an...interesting guy.