The Brig

Not a typical Mekas film, yet brilliant nonetheless.

Theatre director Judith Malina of avant-garde New York theatre troupe, the Living Theater, decided to stage a production which was a meticulous recreation of life in marine corps prison (the brig). Having been ordered off the premises due to lack of funds, they broke into their theatre and produced one last performance of the play, which Jonas Mekas immortalised on film. It is more than a filmed play though, the camera is certainly not static and most of the action is very close up. The film was, quite amazingly, shot with no retakes, but is still works perfectly, even if occasionally the quality of the sound is not great.

The brig is a very small space where about ten men are kept in a cage lined with bunkbeds. At about half four in the morning they get half beaten out of bed and must jump into their boots pronto. Then it's time to wash their "handsies and facies". Hopefully, if they manage to make their bed as tight as a drum beforehand, they won't get a haymaker to the belly from sarge. The realism is quite amazing, some of the actors genuinely look terrified, producing the play may well have been quite upsetting for these folks. Mekas went as far as to consider the film a documentary, and indeed the film won best documentary at the Venice film festival.

Every action performed is as a result of an order, the men are constantly in motion having to call out their numbers, whilst they march on the spot in marktime, or proceed though the brig in lockstep/mark time. There are white lines all over the brig which they have to ask permission for to cross over. It's really very frightening, and had me on the verge of tears at one point. The entire movie is filmed in the one claustrophobic room which creates a lot of tension. The men are forbidden from talking to each other and must read from the Marine Corps manual when they are not doing anything else, stood at attention with the book held up to their faces. The job of the day is to avoid cracking up and getting thrown in solitary.

So it's apparently extremely realistic and makes other film treatments of Marine Corps life look positively rosy. I suppose if you want men to do something as unnatural as killing each other, this is how you have to treat them.

The Brig was an off Broadway play. A special performance of it was performed for Jonas Mekas' camera. If it hadn't been, it could have been long forgotten about. The acting is first rate. The sync sound was captured live directly onto the the film. The dialog sounds somewhat garbled, but that works here, since the marine captains' verbal abuse of their soldiers is as nonsensical as their actions. So this could be shown universally and people everywhere would get the point about what's going on. It all takes place in one setting and is captured with a hand-held camera. Thus we feel like a silent witness to the action. The black and white photography is instrumental in capturing such a bleak world. So whether by design or by luck, the film of The Brig is no doubt every bit as rewarding an experience as the original stage play was. Simply put, this film is a work of modern art that successfully captures modern art. It should be preserved for all time.

The plot is simple: just an ordinary day in a Marine Corps brig. We are treated to the non-stop verbal, physical, and psychological abuse of the luckless prisoners at the hands of their merciless sadistic Marine Corps captors. The starkness of the film's quality only adds to its effectiveness. The action is fast-paced and real. One scene when a prisoner breaks down is especially memorable. The theme of man's inhumanity to man is explored at a very high psychological level. I've never seen sheer brutality and torment depicted so well. This film makes an unforgettable impression, all in about an hour's time. A must-see!