Neil Brun: Terry Gilliam's Brazil

		Brazil A film by Terry Gilliam, © 1985 Embassy and MCA/Universal. Reviewed by Neil Brun, 00090462 : Arch 484, Architecture and Film Preface Attempting to discuss the meaning and value behind a Terry Gilliam film is a little more daunting than drinking from a swimming pool. Being a devoted fan of his films and of his work with Monty Python for many years, I would like to claim to have a slightly greater capacity for appreciating the layered complexity of his work than some people, but this would be admitting to no small thing. It will not be valuable in this review to discuss the plot or even the characters of the film, as there are far too many things that would need to be addressed in even the briefest synopsis. As Gilliam said himself about his own work, "I actually design [a film] so that, I hope, people will go back and see it again and again. I find that most films are a little bit like fast food. I mean you have them and it's fine and it's over and done with and that's the end of it. And I like the idea of going back and rediscovering, or discovering new things all the time." - Gilliam, 1986 Interview With that in mind, I have no choice but to assume the reader has seen the film (Preferably more than once) before getting anything of value from this review. After much research, three major themes have surfaced which I believe to hold the most value for discussion regarding the use of architecture in the film as a comment on the modern age. The first and second are authority and entrapment, and the third is control, which is the goal of the first two.
		The Architecture of Authority: Oppression and Incomprehension Many scenes in the film were shot at abandoned industrial sites or power generation stations, but never as places of industry or power generation. The reason for this can be traced to Gilliam's original inspiration for Brazil, which was a drive through the town of Port Talbot: "Port Talbot is a steel town, where everything is covered with a grey iron ore dust. Even the beach is completely littered with dust, it's just black. The sun was setting, and it was really quite beautiful. The contrast was extraordinary. I had this image of a guy sitting there on this dingy beach with a portable radio, tuning in these strange Latin escapist songs like Brazil. The music transported him somehow and made his world less grey." -Gilliam, 1986 Interview One can see this inspiration at work throughout the film. For example, the Department of Records (where Sam works in the beginning of the film) was shot in an abandoned grain mill in London's Dockland. The mill was sprayed with gray paint, and flour sifters were turned into benches. Ironically, when Sam is "promoted", he moves into a much more opressive work environment at the MOI building, which was shot at the same location, only beneath the mill's 12-storey grain silos (indicated by the large holes in the hall ceilings). In the film, Sam steps into this windowless labyrinth of huge concrete columns, but we are told he is actually on the 30th floor of the MOI building. The ridiculous notion of such enormous structure being used at the 30th floor of a building makes us wonder how massive the building must really be (And it is not irrelevant that at no point in the film do we see the entire MOI building or even the top of it). The monolithic and unapproachable quality of Sam's work environment is a metaphor for the extent to which the MOI (and the society it runs) are structured. The basement scenes were shot at the Croydon power station, where large generators represent the awesome power and central role the MOI yields over the city. The same site was used to grant the exterior of the MOI building (a massive art deco façade of brick) with very much the same level of power and danger. The MOI Retrieval torture chamber, perhaps THE most disturbing space ever used in the history of film, was shot in a cooling tower at a power station in South London. So said the film's creator when asked about the oppressive nature of the MOI in the film, "I've always had a great distaste for authority and bureaucracy and all the additives that they breed." - Gilliam, 1986 Interview The nature of these structures displaces the audience from reality by removing the events that take place in them from any semblance of human scale or comprehension. These places were originally designed to handle complicated, all-encompassing operations of manufacturing and power-generation (not these are both things the modern age hinges on), and are simply beyond the ability or reach of a single human being. By using these environments as workplaces, Gilliam grants the work being done (processing information) the same permeating yet incomprehensible quality. The MOI is simply TOO BIG a system - no one person can handle it, fix it, or even understand it. At the same time, things are set up rigorously enough to make it just as hard to work outside the system as inside it. Paradoxically, both the spaces used and the systems they came to house in the film were man-made, and are therefore as frail and imperfect as the humans that made them. This frailty of human judgement and modern "values" is another major idea Gilliam explores through architecture in Brazil.




		Entrapment and Imprisonment Another condition of the modern age that Brazil analyzes through architecture, both literally and metaphorically, is the idea of entrapment and imprisonment. This notion pervades the film through the dream sequences, imagery, and situations that propel the plot. Sam's dreams, which are all about his desire to fly and be free with the woman he loves, are constantly interrupted by manifestations of the built environment. In one dream, his flight towards Jill is suddenly cut off by an array of brick monoliths that rise out of the ground. Another dream sequence has Jill literally trapped within a cage and being pulled through dark city streets. Just as Sam is about to save her, a brick figure rises out of the ground to grab Sam's feet. The manner in which the dream sequences were shot sheds light on the sense of imprisonment these scenes provide commentary on: "One of the incredible things was that when we ended the film, we finally ran out of time and space at in Lee Studios in Wembley. We were forced out of there and we ended up using a building behind the studio, which turned out to be Her Majesty's Stationery Office. It was where all the paperwork in Britain was stored and that's where we ended up shooting all the fantasy sequences … the flying sequences of Brazil in the store room of all the paper work of Britain. It's that sort of thing that's wonderful and kept happening." -Gilliam, Brazil voice over with Charles McKeown The image of cages comes up several times in the film. One such example is the trolley cart Sam takes home from work, which appears to be no more than a cage on wheels transporting people from one area of the city to another. There is a strong similarity of this scene to Jill's cage being dragged through the city streets in Sam's daydream. When Sam tries to get out of the trolley, the doors close violently on his arms as the cart continues to whir down its track. Another example is the lift scene, in which Sam sees Jill, the object of his dreams, at the MOI front desk while descending to the lobby floor. His hopes of reaching her are thwarted, as the lift malfunctions and continues on its course into the basement. The idea of being trapped is not always conveyed through small cage-like spaces. The MOI's enormous torture chamber, which was mentioned earlier in the review, is perhaps the scariest prison one could ever imagine simply because it is so incomprehensibly large and unapproachable, much like the city or Central Services itself. Sam is in a constant battle with the environment in which he imprisoned. His apartment flat, an modern deal with a modular flair, is outfitted with all the conveniences of modern living, including breakfast making machines, and central heating, which provide an essay on how people become entrapped by a reliance on modern commodities they cannot control or understand. When Sam's air conditioning malfunctions, his environment becomes hostile, going from boiling hot to freezing cold. Similar struggles occur at Sam's new 'office' at the MOI, where efficiency seems to have priority over comfort or sense. A large steel plate has halved what seems to have once been a regular room and a hole has been cut to pass a shared desk through it. In one of the most memorable scenes of the film, Sam and Harry Lime battle as unknown opponents for a couple extra inches of desk. Apart from the ridiculous furniture, the pneumatic paper tubes malfunction and start to flood Sam's office with paper, as he desperately tries to get rid of it like a man hurling water over the side of a sinking row boat. "To me, that's what life seems to be about: it's dealing with things. Either they help you or they get in your way, they frustrate you, they drive you crazy, you spend your life trying to make money to buy them so they can serve you and then they don't serve you properly - it goes on and on. I think we're living in a fairly materialistic world - that's why things are so important in it." -Gilliam, 1986 Interview The size of the office in relation to the implied size of the MOI building emphasizes how imprisoned Sam is in his environment, which he tries desperately to escape. In the escape scene outside the MOI buiding, the massive and oppressive 1930's Art Deco buildings that frame the scene make even Jill's enormous truck seem tiny, and one never feels as though they have gotten "outside" at all. Sam and Jill then drive away along a stretch of highway to the edge of the city, but their views of a desecrated landscape raped of all its resources are blocked by an endless parade of billboards tight to the sides of the road. Ironically, these signs speak of vacation packages, escaping to far-off lands to explore nature. For this entire scene, Sam is ranting about their need to escape the city. As the driving sequence unfolds, it becomes apparent to both Sam and the viewer that this is not possible. In returning to the city from the industrial outskirts, a chase scene ensues between the MOI police and Jill's truck. This scene, as well as the scenes involving Sam's apartment complex, was shot on site at Marne la Vallee in France, which was designed by Ricardo Bofil and is now the site of Euro Disney. The scale and modular character of the "streets" through which Sam and Jill are being chased make it seem as though they are in fact driving through a large computer, which is not an image to ignore. One of my personal favourite scenes in the film, which also explores this notion of entrapment, is the scene in which Sam drives his tiny car (which is actually called a Messerschmidt) to work through a parade of identical office buildings with cooling towers rising out of them. (On a digression, if you look closely, the towers are painted blue with cartoon-like clouds, as if this gesture renders them invisible against the sky). The real commentary of this scene comes when a wino, at first appearing to be the size of Godzilla, rises up over these buildings with a bottle and looks down on the viewer from the heavens. I love this scene because not only does it imply, for an instant, that Sam is living in one of those hamster-villages on display in a petshop window, but it provokes us to consider on a deeper level that, if our world is really a big hamster village, perhaps the man in charge of watching over our world has just as little regard us and is just as clueless as the wino gazing in on Sam.








		Control: "You are being watched…" The scene that was just discussed involving the wino ties into the next major idea that Gilliam explores through environment, that of being monitored and watched at all times. Central Services, a self-perpetuating autocracy that controls every aspect of life in Brazil, has seemingly seeped into every crack of society with the purposes of controlling the most valued commodity of the modern age, information. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the permeating aspect of Central Services and the MOI are the ducts that have infiltrated every pore of the built environment. So says a salesman in the opening scene: "Hi there. I want to talk to you about ducts. Do your ducts seem old-fashioned, out of date? Central Services' new duct designs are now available in hundreds of different colours to suit your individual tastes. Hurry now while stocks last to your nearest Central Services showroom. Designer colours to suit your demanding tastes." Gilliam admits to drawing the major inspiration for the ducts from the old Victorian era houses in which plumbing, heating, etc. have been retrofitted. Gilliam's view was that adding 'modern conveniences' defaced the beauty of these old homes. In Brazil, ducts are a symbol of a society that has become totally reliant upon a centralized government obsessed with processing and controlling information. When the ducts are exposed, as by Archibald Tuttle (Robert DeNiro) in Sam's apartment, we see the unorganized mess of conduits and cords that is supporting society. They act like living organs, breathing umbilical cords that tie each part of the system to others by snaking through spaces and lurking within floors, walls, and crevices, as shown in the set design drawings for the Buttle residence and Jill's flat. The living nature of the ducts becomes very transparent in several scenes, such as the scene in which Kurtzmann, in confiding in Sam about the Buttle refund cheque, stops when its seems that the ducts are listening to them. There are also the scenes in which Tuttle performs 'surgery' on Sam's heating system and connects what could be called the apartment's 'intestinal tract' to the Central Service repairmen's air supply. These scenes draw a strong analogy to the ignorance of humans with regards to the systems within their own bodies, and our need to visit a specialist in the event of something breaking down. The notion of control and monitoring society is also explored through literal and metaphorical 'eyes' that pervade the film. When Jill tries to file a wrongful arrest, a robotic eyeball examines her. There was also a dream sequence that never made it into the film in which Sam dangles from Jill's cage as it floats through the sky over a sea of eyeballs.




		Credits/References http://members.aol.com/morgands2/text/brazilpd.htm Brazil Newspaper Ad, 1985, and Gilliam 1986 interview: http://members.aol.com/morgands2/text/brazilad.htm http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue06/features/brazil.htm Movie images taken from: http://www.trond.com/brazil.html http://www.coldbacon.com/movies/brazil.html http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1986/01/38231.html