Marquim do Tropa observing the unrest in Once There Was Brasília (2017), directed by Adirley Queirós (all stills courtesy Terratreme)
Not unlike many countries around the world, Brazil is in a state of unease and unrest. Things have been bad, but they’ve only gotten worse ever since ex-President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016, with some calling it a coup. Former Vice President Michel Temer took her place and surrounded himself with likeminded old white men (hardly representative of one of the most diverse countries in the world) who exude center-right politics. With Temer as president the last two years, Brazil has become more conservative and more corrupt. Now, the widely unpopular president is looking to stay on for another term in the upcoming October election.
It is amidst this political morass that Adirley Quierós’s Once There Was Brasília (2017) situates itself in. Like Quierós’s White Out, Black In (2014), this new film is also a lo-fi sci-fi consisting of Afro-Brazilian non-actors, only it takes place in Brasília (the capital) and Ceilândia — an impoverished satellite city first built for temporary residence. The film is screening this Friday as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s yearly series Art of the Real.
A scene from Once There Was Brasília (2017)
Once There Was Brasília’s threadbare story (and given its thinness, it is still opaque) consists of an intergalactic traveler, WA4 (Wellington Abreu), hired to assassinate President Juscelino Kubitschek on the day that he inaugurates Brasília in 1960. Queirós devotes a healthy amount of time to WA4 chain-smoking in his cramped rattletrap of a ship and preparing for his hit. The ship malfunctions and crashes too far into the future, in 2016 Ceilândia, a city he observes as similar to his own on a planet called Karpenstahll. There he meets Andreia (Andreia Vieira), once incarcerated for busting a cue stick over a man’s head and killing him, and the wheelchair-bound Marquim (Marquim do Tropa), an observer who “sees things that no one else believes in.” Andreia witnesses them too, tracing the imaginary trajectory of a UFO, of perhaps the ship of the intergalactic hitman. When WA4 lands on Earth, his plans change. He joins Andreia and Marquim, along with a larger group in solidarity, to stage an insurrection against the politicians in the National Congress. And yet their plan appears to fizzle out by film’s end.
A story, or the suggestion of one, seems to be of secondary concern for Queirós. He seems more interested in creating and sustaining a mood of nocturnal dread with minimal settings, sparse lighting, and all-around inventive cinematography by DP Joana Pimenta (a filmmaker in her own right). Moreover, Once There Was Brasília is virtually a series of set pieces, of portraits of characters in futuristic garb made out of everyday materials (WA4 wears a gas mask and a suit of rubber; a welding helmet dons Marquim’s head). Queirós prefers protracted, long-take shots that feature one or two events (a car exploding, a ship crashing, characters endlessly waiting and looking). The net effect is a film that alternates between awesome ingenuity and tediousness.
Marquim and Andreaia Vieira meet on the yellow bridge in Once There Was Brasília (2017)
The most startling shots are the two set in a subway car and platform that show people of color — heads perpetually down, shackled and in blue jumpsuits — surrounded by security guards. This is Brazil as a police state, rounding up people to export them to Ceilândia. With Alphaville (1965), Jean-Luc Godard turned contemporary Paris into a dystopia just by filming it. And this is precisely what Qeuirós does to Brasília and Ceilândia at night with Once There Was Brasília, which is scored to the archival audio of Roussef’s impeachment, as well as Brasília and Temer’s respective inaugurations.
Although Once There Was Brasília doesn’t quite coalesce, Quierós still brims with ideas on how to approach politics and nonfiction filmmaking. Terse and elliptical, it paints a bleak picture of Brazil. It is in this film where the outcasts, the outsiders, and the perpetually neglected look on at the entropy marring the country.
WA4 (Wellington Abreu) prepares to assassinate President Juscelino Kubitschek in Once There Was Brasília (2017)
Once There Was Brasília directed by Adirley Queirós is screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan) as part of Art of the Real on Friday, April 27 at 6:30pm. More info at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
The Latest
Art Problems: How Do I Get a Public Art Commission?
Want to leave a mark on your city or town, but don’t know where to start? Paddy Johnson has some tips.
Rose B. Simpson Embeds Ancestral Histories in Clay
She has taken clay and used it to recall its ancestral roots in Pueblo culture and address the present history of postcolonial recovery and ongoing trauma.
Mondays at Pratt Institute: Weekly Openings of Work by Graduating Artists
Free and open to the public, Pratt Shows celebrate the school’s graduating students. MFA and BFA work on view this spring in Brooklyn, New York.
Quiet Paintings at a Time of Sensory Overload
Where Kim Mikyung’s process suggests an obsessive burrowing into the self, Kim Hyung-dae casts his gaze upward and outward into the sky.
Is the “Free the Nipple” Movement Too White?
Online representations of the activists lean White and thin, creating an image problem for the movement.
LSU School of Art Grants Highest MFA Stipends in the Southern US
With funded assistantships, full tuition waivers, and generous stipends, Louisiana State University helps students lay the groundwork for a successful lifelong art practice.
New “We ❤️ NYC” Campaign Misses the Mark
The recently unveiled design is meant to live alongside the iconic original and specifically address the city, but New Yorkers are not happy.
1,000+ Objects at The Met Linked to Antiquities Smugglers
A report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed hundreds of works once owned by people accused of or convicted of antiquities crimes.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Offers Summer Art and Design Courses Online and On-Campus
Emerging and established artists can choose from over 50 Adult Continuing Education courses at one of the most influential art and design schools in the US.
Lunar Bead Necklace and Asteroid “Emoji” Head to Auction
Christie’s bizarre sale features other space rocks propped up on stands like sculptures.
Scientists Create the First Full Brain Map of a Fly
The achievement is a giant step toward understanding human neural networks.
IDSVA Offers a Non-Studio PhD in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory
With no campus, the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts is a truly nomadic institution, existing everywhere our students and faculty are.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Closes Over Climate Protest
The institution shuttered in advance of an action planned for the 33rd anniversary of its infamous art heist.
Remembering the Migrants Who Died in US Detention
Artist Jackie Amézquita will lead a caravan of trucks with the names of the deceased to LA sites representing systems of oppression and solidarity for immigrants.