The Brig is a film as claustrophobic as its setting. A military prison the size of a large postage stamp where ten prisoners and their guards cohabit. The prisoners are reduced to numbers and the guards have no qualms in dishing out corporal punishment, part of a process of breaking the prisoners down into malleable subservients, suitable to be reintegrated into the US marines. The film feels as though it must have influenced Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, but it also feels astonishingly balletic, as though it has been choreographed by Pina Bausch. The ten prisoners and as many guards move around the space with a rhythmic ferocity which contains a perverse beauty.
The Brig is a slightly disingenuous film, which was awarded the prize for best documentary at Venice, but is actually a brilliantly filmed account of a stage play by the Living Theatre, originally directed by Judith Malina. Mekas filmed the play during a special performance staged for his camera. Many have commented at the brilliance of the movie in capturing the cruelties of a military penal system and in this it is unflinching, but clearly credit here should go to Malina, the writer, Kenneth H. Brown and the actors themselves. However, what has made this such an iconic film and marks it apart from other filmed versions of stage plays, is the brilliance of the composition and the camera work. The camera is right in there, and we experience the play in a way the theatre audience never could. At one point the cameraman’s shadow appears on a wall. Whether this was deliberate or not, it is testament to its sly infiltration, and the brilliance of the filmed version of a devastating play.
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