Brazil

1985 Utopian fantasy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Society is deadened, feelings seemingly forbidden by law. Blueish-collar worker Sam juggles a relationship with his mother that sickens him, a job that is exactly as dead-end as he would like it to be, and his fantasies involving a woman he's only barely made eye contact with. Meanwhile, metallic gods bring the hammer down, and bureaucrats read from pamphlets as thick as bricks.

The problems with this one are that it requires more viewings than most people are probably willing to invest, that there is probably just too much movie here and it'll likely leave some viewers drowning in it all, and that some of it seems a little dated. But the rest of it--the acting, oddball characters, absolutely incredible sets and more incredible visual appeal, the noirish complex plot, the music--is explosively imaginative. I can't imagine how some of this was pulled off without computer animation. The movie stays fun and funny while all the time being oppressively depressing and sharply satirical. It seems weird to me that there was a time when Terry Gilliam was one of my favorite directors but that I didn't really care for this movie all that much.