An Exploration of Insurgent Production Design

As life would have it, I ended up taking a Production Design class and a Film Theory class in the same quarter.

I found this coincidence to be interesting and helpful as the two subjects are surprisingly interrelated.

A film's production design can tell us a lot about what the filmmakers are trying to communicate (which is film theory), and those same concepts can have a great amount of influence on a production team's production design decisions.

These two classes (and a few others) have ruined my ability to watch movies without paying attention to stuff like the production design.  Thus it was that I rewatched Insurgent.

I did this for two reasons:

1. So that I could see if it was as bad as I remembered it
2. So that I could watch it alone in order to form my own opinions

Having grown up with a rather controlling mother, I find it hard these days to express my opinions if they don't reflect the opinions of everyone else in the room.  Thus I have never told my teacher or my classmates exactly how much I disliked Nightcrawler, A Most Violent Year, Dope, or Foxcatcher.

The same is true of Insurgent.  When I first saw it on pre-opening night (see http://lynzmediathoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/insurgent-count-down.html), I was with my Divergent fan who ended up not liking the movie.  Before passing judgment, however, I wanted to see the again without an outside influence.

So it was that I ran to Redbox one beautiful summer day and used my "rent one, get one free" coupon to grab a copy of Insurgent.  And while I'm still not entirely happy with the plot deviations and some of the dialogue drove me up the wall, I found that Insurgent really wasn't all that bad.

I turned from a story about a hopeless, depressed girl rediscovering a reason to live into a story about a hopeless, depressed girl who learns to forgive herself.

It's a powerful message, and one that mainstream media doesn't touch on very often.

But that wasn't the only thing I noticed during my second viewing.  I noticed a few things about the production design that stuck out to me.


It All Started with the Erudite Sequence...

Spoiler Alert: Tris ends up as a prisoner in the Erudite compound.

Well, okay, she hands herself in for "research" in order to stop Jeanine from killing innocent people.



Regardless, Tris spends a good half of the movie between a holding cell and a science lab in the Erudite compound, always under guard.  She's a prisoner.  A voluntary one, but a prisoner none the less.

In the book, her reasons for doing this are made quite clear.  Overcome by guilt over the deaths of her parents, Will, and a handful of others who have been killed by the Erudite in their efforts to round up Tris and the Divergents once and for all, Tris decides she doesn't want to live anymore.  She also convinces herself that Four, and Caleb, and everyone else she loves will be safer if she dies.  So instead of throwing herself off a bridge or jumping in front of a moving train or shooting herself, Tris hands herself over to the Erudite, knowing they will probably have her executed at the end of whatever experiments they wish to run on her.  This also serves the dual purpose of giving the Erudite a Divergent to study so they'll stop killing innocent people.

The movie makes a point of saying that the Erudite are specifically demanding someone to hand Tris over because she somehow the most divergent Divergent person in Chicago, and therefore is the perfect test subject for their experiment (aka opening that strange box that was hidden in the Prior home back in Abegnation).  Overwhelmed by guilt over the deaths of the innocent people are the Erudite are killing to "motivate" everyone to hand Tris over to them, Tris takes the situation into her own hands and turns herself in.  Problem solved...kinda.

Upon the first viewing, I remember thinking, "Oh, this is different, but at least the plot is mostly the same."

But upon the second viewing, I began to notice something interesting...

...like enough to make me search Google to demonstrate my theory interesting.

The lab where Tris is hooked up to the device that's supposed to open that mysterious box everyone's been going on about for half the movie is a square.  Tris has to stand on a circular disc in the center of the room in order to be hooked up to the device.  And she separated from Jeanine and the other Erudite scientists by a large glass viewing window

At first, I thought nothing of this.  The Erudite are, after all, intelligent and also seeking to further their understanding of things.  It seems natural for Tris to find herself in this type of enclosure as a test subject.

Then they moved her to a prison cell so she could recoup for another day of experiments, and I noticed something interesting...

Her cell is a square with a square-shaped window.


But...

...the hallway outside is circular.

And...

...oh hey, look!  The cell doors are large panels of glass.

Large panels of glass that look a lot like viewing windows.

This poor girl gets, like, no privacy.

Which makes sense.  I mean, after all, the Erudite are the intelligent ones who are always seeking to expand their knowledge.  Therefore, it makes perfect sense that even their prison would feel like a lab where innocent subjects can be observed and tested without discretion.  I'm not a huge fan of animal testing...

But the cherry on the top of the cake comes in the form of the shower scene.  Don't let that scare you.  It's not that kind of shower scene.  It's all of five seconds long, and only shows Tris's head and shoulders as water pours over her.  That's all.

This honestly one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie.  Tris is alone in this dark room.  She's just come from a long day of intense simulations.  She is exhausted.  Hopeless.  Alone for the first time since her ordeal began.  Simply standing there as cold water cascades over her.  I like to imagine it's cold water.

There's something beautiful about the whole scene.

And, of course, I can't find a picture of it anywhere.

But, one needs only rent a copy of the DVD or [legally] download it from the Amazon Instant Video to find it.

And the reason you should go look it up is not because it's my favorite scene and I told you to, but because if you did go watch the scene I've just described to you, you would notice something interesting about the design of the shower.

It's a square with light coming from little round objects on the walls.  Or are those windows?

Square, circle, viewing window.

Maybe this is all just a coincidence (in which case the production design team should scold themselves for not thinking of that earlier).  But just in case it wasn't a went on a serach to find more square-circle-window patterns.  And I found....

Circular Building

Square Windows

...at the Amity Compound.

Am I going crazy?

I think not.

At least, I hope not.

...and Evolved into Film Theory

So, as I sit here at work typing up all this stuff about squares and circles and windows, I began to wonder why the filmmakers chose to use this theme throughout the movie.  

If this is just a happy coincidence, then the production designer should pat himself on the back after he slaps himself for not thinking of it sooner.

If my suspicions are correct, however, and this whole square, circle, window theme was planned (which I sincerely hope it was), then one must go further and ask, "What does this mean?"  What concept are they communicating to us through their choices in set design?

While I can't say for certain what these guys had in mind when they designed the sets and all, I have formed a possible theory.

A common theme in Divergent is reflection.  Tris sees her reflection in mirrors, windows, puddles of water, anything with a reflective surface.  I think this is to personify Tris' search for herself.

Does that make sense?

The first book/movie is primarily about Tris trying to figure out who she is.  

In the Divergent universe, a person is defined by their Faction.  Are they brave, selfless, honest, intelligent, or kind?  Your Faction defines you.

Problem is Tris tests positive for three Factions, Dauntless, Erudite, and Abnegation.  She does not fit into any one category.  She's Divergent.

She spends a good portion of the beginning of the story trying to figure out where she fits into their society, and it takes her the rest of the movie to figure out that she doesn't have to necessarily be confined to one trait.  It's perfectly okay to be divergent, other than the fact that Erudite is trying to kill you because you can't be controlled by traditional means.  

My theory regarding Insurgent is that the production design is meant to represent exposure.  Tris spends the majority of the movie trying to hide who she really is and what she's done (namely killing Will while he was under the attack simulation in Divergent) from everyone around her.  First of all, being divergent is dangerous, in and of itself, because the Divergents are being hunted by the Erudite and are generally frowned upon by everyone else.  Second, Tris fears that revealing the truth about Will's death to her friends and remaining family will make them hate her.  On top of all that, Tris is hiding with a bunch of Abegnation and Dauntless fugitives who have taken refuge in the Amity headquarters, so they're trying to blend in as much as possible.  

Contrast Tris' closely guarded personal life with the openness of the Amity compound.  Everything is open and exposed.  The buildings are only half built and have trees growing right in the middle of them, and most everyone hangs out in public places, which usually have wide windows to let in the most light.  The Amity are at peace because they do not fear exposure.  Tris, on the other hand, is not peaceful because she is constantly having to watch her steps and look back over her shoulder to make sure nobody catches a glimpse of her secrets.  She is, in fact, so wound up by the guilt of her actions and grief over the loss of her parents and trying so hard not to draw attention to herself that she has probably developed one of the shortest fuses in literary history and will try to kill people for looking at her the wrong way.

Flash forward to Candor.  The Candor are honest, even to the point of being impolite.  The Candor building is a gigantic glass structure, lined with huge windows and bright lights.  Everything is out in the open again.  Everything is exposed.  There are not secrets in Candor.  This is best demonstrated by their Truth Serum, which makes a person prone to share their deepest secrets to achieve true honesty.  This is why Tris is so against taking the Truth Serum when they are arrested by Amity for the murder of the Abegnation (back in Divergent).  The exposure of her secrets is the last thing she wants, and why she tries to resist the serum once she's been injected with it.  Being exposed like that in front of all of Candor and half of Dauntless must have been one of the most traumatic experiences of her short life.  

The Erudite compound is the epitome of Tris' exposure crisis.  Practically every room she's kept in is a lab -- a box with a window and nowhere to hide.  She is a lab rat in the purest sense of the word.

But she doesn't really have anything left to hide, if you think about it.  Her divergence and the fact that she killed Will have already been exposed while under the Truth Serum.  The only thing that is still hidden is what makes her so special.  What is it about Tris that makes her Divergent, anyway?  In the book, Tris makes sure to negotiate the terms of her captivity so that Jeanine and her cronies can study her all they want as long as they share their findings with her.  Not so much in the movie, but in the book she figures, "They're going to kill me when this is over anyway.  What harm could be done by telling me what they learn from studying me?"  She's been laid open like a book back at the Candor headquarters.  I don't think she's still trying to hide her secrets anymore.  I think she's trying to reveal more about herself, trying to learn whatever she can about her divergence in hopes of finding out who she really is.

In short, my Insurgent production design theory is this:

The filmmakers have constructed a world where Tris is completely exposed.  They place her in a series of sets where nearly every wall is a window and every move she makes can be seen by those outside.  They have put her on display in a glass cage for all to see.  She has nowhere to hide.

I think is this a reflection of Tris' inner fear of exposing her secrets, and it was very well devised on the part of the production designers.


So...

Five months ago I would have said, "No, don't see this movie!  It's terrible!" for the simple reason that my Divergent fan friend said she didn't like it.  However, coming back to it on my own, I think I can now say, "Well, it's not the book, and some of the dialogue is a bit stiff (no pun intended), but I liked it."

I thought the soundtrack was fantabulous, most of the acting was good, and the special effects of pretty cool!

So, should you see it?

I think it's worth a viewing or two, if you liked the first movie, are over 16, and are not one of those people who find Shailene Woodley's voice to be irritating (I don't have a problem with her voice, but that's just one film student's opinion).

Be advised, though, there is a kinda sex scene in the middle.  When I say "kinda", I mean the characters take off their shirts and make out rather passionately, but it's all filmed very carefully so that nothing too inappropriate is shown, and we (thankfully) don't see the actual act of sex on screen.  It's all kinda implied by the aforementioned passionate kissing and Shailene Woodley's bare back.

Aside from that, there's the usual amount of violence.  People get shot, stabbed, fall down stairs, fall off buildings...you get the picture.  There's a bit of language, most of which are four letter words with one possible muffled use of the f-bomb (it's hard to tell because the character says it so quietly).

Kids definitely shouldn't see this movie until they're much older.  Older teens and adults, I think, will be fine, but I'll leave that decision up to you and/or your legal guardians (depending on how old you are).

Anyway, I didn't think it was half-bad, and I'd happily watch it again.