Architecture in "Aeon Flux"

Immensely enjoyed a mini movie marathon today!

Strangely enough, the real star of the show had to have been the architecture (left) of "Aeon Flux"! (Using real locations like Berlin's "Chapel of Reconciliation" at right...)

I was surprised not to find more about it available on the web. But here's an excerpt about Aeon Flux's setting of "Bregna" in the film's production notes on its official website (with some hyperlinks added by me...)

"The characters of Aeon Flux live in the walled city of Bregna, ruled by Trevor and Oren Goodchild. The filmmakers’ vision for Bregna was far from the overpolluted, gritty future worlds seen in other films; rather, they strove for a hyper-sanitized environment – one that dissembles the sinister intentions of its rulers....

Bregna is a walled city that protects its citizens from nature. The last city on earth, it is surrounded by overgrowth. It’s a small, protected place with no interaction with the outside world. The filmmakers found what they were looking for – that combination of yesterday and tomorrow – in the buldings and gardens of Berlin and Potsdam, Germany. The Bauhaus architectural style, which Walter Gropius popularized as director of the Bauhaus art school from 1919 to 1928, exemplified what Kusama wanted to achieve on screen. The Bauhaus belief, that the union of art and technology could bring about new social conditions through the creation of new visual surroundings, underscores the principles that guided Kusama’s choices in creating the look of the highly controlled and contained city-state of Bregna, where ordinary citizens are constantly under surveillance and nothing is quite as it appears to be.

With clean, unbroken lines, the geometric modernism of Bauhaus design fit perfectly with the stylized but organic look of 'Aeon Flux.' 'We’re looking at the most beautiful thinking on form anywhere," McAlpine said of the Bauhaus Museum, which doubles as Una Flux’s apartment complex. 'It’s the last building Gropius ever built and we’re working with some of the most pure architecture imaginable. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.'

Location managers Christian Alexander Klempert and Matthias Braun combed the buildings and gardens of Berlin and Potsdam, and found an almost surreal combination of stunning modern and historic architectural wonders. 'There were astonishing places that had never been photographed, ranging from the 1700s to the 1960s,' says McAlpine, noting that, until recently, these places had been behind the Iron Curtain. 'We had access to amazing 400-year-old architecture as well as incredible modern designs, all of which had beautiful
curvatures and geometric shapes to them.' The filmmakers’ chosen locations include the parks and palaces of Potsdam’s Schloss Sanssouci and Buga Park (right) and Berlin’s Maria Regina Martyrum.

Peter Chung, creator of the animated series, feels that the filmmaker’s dedication to 'getting it right' paid off. 'In Berlin, I saw the crew filming Charlize [Theron] on several sets, all of which were in real historical structures with all the texture and functionality of lived-in spaces,' says Chung. 'The locations of the movie look and feel very real, while seeming to have been lifted straight out of the animation.'

In fact, the preexisting settings were every bit as gorgeous as the rest of the film's art production, and I can't wait to learn more about it! (I'm no expert, but they often reminded me of some of my favorite pavilions at Venice's Biennale modern art exhibition... Like Sverre Fehn's Scandinavian pavilion, with trees growing right through his design... even though it's much, much more linear!)

(More on Fehn at the official Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate site!)

Categories: Film, Art, Venice