MASH

 Obscure. Obscured. Obscuring. MASH seemed blurry, unnecessarily complicated, and difficult to unpick, like some three-pound knot entirely in thread. I had an extremely difficult time understanding the significance of several of the shots - even to the point where some of them seemed like abstract photography, without the innate art value.
This film has undisputed cultural significance for the seventies, and the career of the director, but thematically, several elements emerge as gallingly un-PC. The sexism specifically appalled. It really sort of explains bra-burning, which I never quite understood.
Again, just like in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry I find myself sympathizing with the obvious antagonists. Major Hoolihan may have been written as a ridiculous and limited character, but the indignities she suffered at the hands of her co-workers could never be justified, even to protest a war. And when she acts justifiably hysterical, she is ignored by her superiors, and mocked by the camera. I truly felt sorry for her, and for a moment, I hated the men as they sat and laughed, confident that their violent voyeurism would be applauded.
If the creators of this film mean wartime attrocities to explain the behavior of these three seriously unhinged figures, they do little to link the two. Although a few images of blood and injury appear, they don't seem to mean anything to the rest of the film, as if two films were spliced together almost randomly. None of the events in the operating room seem to influence the dangerous hijinx outside it, which means they can't justify it either.
I found the scene sequence involving the Bud Cort character and Major Burns (avenged by Trapper) particularly significant, and remarkably lucid. The rest, however, skidded and jerked past, leaving a tangled mass of significant obscurity.