Brazil is not a comfortable watch. It’s loud, ugly, confusing, and deeply cynical. But it’s also hilarious, imaginative, and, in its own twisted way, romantic. It asks the terrifying question: What if the system isn’t evil, just incompetent—and that’s worse?

Here’s an interesting write-up on , directed by Terry Gilliam. Brazil: A Dystopian Masterpiece of Dark Satire Brazil (1985) is less a film and more a prophetic fever dream. Directed by Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame), it’s a surreal, claustrophobic, and bitterly funny vision of a retro-futuristic bureaucracy run amok. The title itself is an ironic joke: the film has nothing to do with the country. Rather, it’s named after the hauntingly optimistic song “Brazil” (by Ary Barroso), which plays throughout as a cruel counterpoint to the grim reality on screen.

In a nameless, gray, Brutalist metropolis, low-level government clerk Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) dreams of escaping his drab life. He fantasizes about being a winged hero, saving a beautiful damsel in a cloud-filled paradise. In reality, he lives with his plastic-surgeried mother, works in a maze of pneumatic tubes and endless paperwork, and tries to avoid the attention of his sadistic boss, Mr. Helpmann.

The story kicks off when a typo leads to the arrest and death of an innocent man, Mr. Buttle, instead of the suspected terrorist, Mr. Tuttle. Sam later spots the woman from his dreams, a truck driver named Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who’s trying to correct the bureaucratic error. To get closer to her, Sam decides to investigate the case—accidentally activating the monstrous state machinery against himself. He’s aided by Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro), a rogue “heating engineer” and freelance rebel who fights against the system from within.

If you like 1984, The Prisoner, Office Space, or Severance — you owe it to yourself to watch Gilliam’s original cut. Just don’t expect a happy ending. Expect a truthful one.