“Once There Was Brasília”: Constructing Landscapes through Sound in a Brazilian Political Film
1.24.25
Liz Sandoval
Introduction
Brasília, the capital of Brazil constructed in the early 1960s under the leadership of President Juscelino Kubitschek, has for decades been an iconic representation of architectural and urban modernism—primarily conceptualized outside of the extreme labor conditions and residential segregation that situated low-wage workers far from the glamorous capital city. Once There Was Brasília,1 a film released in 2017, by director Adirley Queirós, catalyzed a resurgence of interest in the capital city’s construction as well as a new perspective from which to cohere the process and impact of Brasília as an ideal. In this essay, I examine the film’s portrayal of the dispute for urban land in the Brazilian metropolitan region, focusing on Brasília and Ceilândia, a satellite city of Brasília, and I propose an approach to the sound landscape2 toward revealing the aesthetic experience of the envisioned settlement as described by Jean-Marie Schaeffer in L’expérience esthétique3—as an experience that can be ordinary but at the same time singular and, in some way, detached from the common experience.4
Once upon a time, around 1960, the sounds of machines and bulldozers could be heard as the city of Brasília was built.5 The erection of the capital city was a symbol of progress that would help develop the sparsely inhabited Brazilian hinterland. The construction required opening new routes and changing the topography. It was also seen as a step away from Brazil’s colonial past and an attempt to address social inequalities and underdevelopment. President Kubitschek was responsible for the task of building the new capital and used modern architecture as a political propaganda tool and instrument for social change. The ideological alignment of this project represented an ambivalent era, balancing political interests and paradigms of cultural conservatism with the desire for modernity inspired by modernist architecture and ideologies of urbanism.
The construction of a new capital attracted people from all over Brazil with the promise of work and advancement. In spite of the progressive development it symbolized, Brasília’s construction saw the displacement of the poorest populations from the central Pilot Plan area, as they were forced to move 30 km away from the Paranoá Lake Basin, where building was taking place.6 The stark contrast between the resulting makeshift homes and the modern infrastructure being built in the central Pilot Plan area highlighted significant disparities in housing standards. The relocation of these poor populations to satellite cities was justified by the aim of providing them with better living conditions and preserving the environment and specifically the basin, thereby ensuring access to a future water supply (see Figure 6.1).7 For those who lived in the improvised settlements within the Pilot Plan area, the promise of being able to purchase their own homes in distant locations with modern infrastructure was enticing. However, the reality of the new settlements tended to fall short of expectations, and the removal process was remembered for its violence and the demolition of homes.
The satellite city of Ceilândia, for example, was established through the Campaign for the Eradication of Invasions (CEI), that is, Campanha de Erradicação de Invasões, which registered shacks existing between 1971 and 1972 as housing before transferring people to the new location.8 Jobless construction workers, families, and migrants, who had come searching for work, were evicted and left with only this precarious housing situation and basic infrastructure. The removal process was often accompanied by the sounds of bulldozers destroying structures and homes, auditory reminders resembling the echoes of power and dominance. Scenes of this displacement were captured by Vladimir Carvalho in the 1990 documentary Conterrâneos Velhos de Guerra. Adhering to the tabula rasa’s urban planning models, Ceilândia’s zoning plan is characterized by long, straight streets and excessively wide, arid alleyways and spaces that have created opportunities for the unlawful occupation of public space (Figure 6.2). The expansion caused by illegal land division has given rise to new settlements, including Sol Nascente (outlined in Figure 6.1).9
Over the past two decades, concerns around the issues reverberating from Brasília’s construction history have taken center stage in contemporary Brazilian cinema, which is permeated with the feelings of perplexity, discomfort, estrangement, and insecurity brought on by the resulting conditions.10 Brazilian contemporary political polarization and increased ideological debates have exposed the fragility of the political field, accentuated social segregation and inequality, and shed light on the living conditions of the peripheral populations, plagued by the conflicting interests that define the metropolis of Brasília and society at large.
In the case of the urban, the ethical addresses the question of our values and our code of conduct as individuals and as a community and beyond, while the political represents the structural means by which we can address the potential actualization of values that matter to us. But since our society is made up of conflicting interests it would be naive to consider politics as a means of achieving consensus in any sphere of social life. Acknowledging the conflictual condition of politics is therefore one of the realities architects and urbanists have to face while conceiving contemporary urban projects.11
Director Adirley Queirós, a resident of Ceilândia, has particularly focused on making these concerns the central theme of his films. Known for his politically charged work, Queirós offers a perspective of urban life that suggests the possibility of redefining and re-understanding urbanism far from how it appears in its current condition.12 Political theorist Chantal Mouffe advocates for an approach that recognizes the role of emotions in shaping decisions, for, as she notes, rationalistic approaches often overlook the conditions that shape the democratic subject’s existence.13 Therefore, my analysis of Queirós’s film Once There Was Brasília aims to offer a new perspective on the experience of landscape, emphasizing the significance of sound effects and exploring the capacity for cinema and, more specifically, sound landscape to evoke sensation and emotion, as well as to explore potential alternative futures through suggested artistic, cultural,14 and sonic urban practices.
Using sound and sonic theory as the basis for this essay’s analysis of the important film, I seek to transform perceptions of this unique case study and to set in motion concepts that may be deployed elsewhere, to narrate alternative histories of iconic visual and spatial moments in the modern movement. As Brandon Labelle states, “the development of sound studies as a discursive field prompts questions as to what defines ‘sound,’ and, by extension, methods of its study.”15 Labelle engages his interests with the dialogue between these “sound discourses” and contemporary struggles, and poses the question: Is there a potential embedded in sonic thought that may lend itself to current struggles? I argue for the significance of the soundscape and its relationship with image, highlighting the ephemeral and relational qualities of sound.
Sound Embodies Landscapes
Our perception of the world is guided by vision, but this undermines the close relationship between image and sound. According to Tiago Carvalho,16 “due to its characteristics, visual perception is active, seeking new elements and details all around; on being considered in and of itself, or otherwise mitigated by the other senses, reality appears with an almost visual connotation.”17 Although we supposedly capture more information about the environment through vision, Dell Upton argues that by emphasizing only the visible and designed aspects of the cultural landscape, we overlook the intangible aspects that make the urban experience more physical and corporeal, thus making us part of the landscape.18
However, there is dissension between, on one hand, the preeminent experience instigated by the visual paradigm and the impulse it has given to performance, and, on the other hand, the close relationship between sound and image. The visual paradigm reduces one’s sense of the world to the visualization of external space, where vision works at a distance, analyzing, observing, and reconstructing the world through clear and sharp contours, thus restricting itself to superficial and composed static limits of shape.19 Sound engineer and sound director Daniel Deshays, who has conceived, produced, and directed sound for a variety of artistic and media practices, explains that in sound production associated with the visibility of its source, the eye always prevails over the ear, following a chronology of perception. He states that “the brain samples the data provided by the eye faster than those provided by the ear. Thus, this precedence given to the eye would be an indisputable physiological fact, and such would be the reason justifying the secondary place occupied by sound in human experience.”20 This observation is crucial and encourages the consideration of sound and image as independent. James J. Gibson has also done extensive research on the psychology of perception.21
Thus, sound has the power to embody, permeate, and mold our surroundings, blurring boundaries and fostering a sense of continuity and rhythm. As human beings, we are not mere detached observers of the landscape; rather, we are intricately connected to it through our perceptual systems. These systems play a significant role in shaping our sense of self, operating in ways that transcend rationality. Brandon Labelle22 emphasizes the communicative nature of sound, which gives rise to intricate ecosystems of matter and energy, intensifying emotional connections and profoundly influencing us. As explored by James Gibson,23 the relationship between a perceptual stimulus and its causal source in the environment differs from the relationship between a symbol and its referent. The latter relies on a linguistic community, representing a unique invention of the human species. This notion implies that sound holds political implications as well, shaping our comprehension of boundaries, desires, codes, identities, and needs. Whether utilized for acts of care and compassion or for disruption and improvisation, sound reveals the fundamental materialism of life.
Films have the ability to delve into the intangible aspects of urban experiences and portray how our environment can enhance our understanding of ourselves and society. By emphasizing the role of sound in films, we gain a deeper appreciation for the fleeting and interconnected nature of our surroundings. In the realm of cinema, sounds and the patterns they create can be elusive. This elusiveness is what gives this technique its power: sound can evoke strong effects while remaining imperceptible. As noted by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson,24 the involvement of our sense of hearing allows for what Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director, referred to as the “synchronization of the senses”25—the ability to achieve unity between image and sound in terms of rhythm or expressive quality. The interplay between image and sound stimulates something profound within the depths of human consciousness.
Once There Was Brasília is a film released amidst political crisis in Brazil. Its conflict is centered on the antagonism between Brasília and Ceilândia and contemporary social issues stemming from violent past that led to the origin of these settlements. Combining documentary language with fictional references to the Western, gangster, and science fiction film genres,26 it develops a narrative using intersections of time and heterochrony. Amid these mixed references, Brasília and Ceilândia are always the stage where past and present are intertwined with reality and fiction. The film uses sound as a defining element of physical and political isolation, constructing an atmosphere from the surrounding sounds and voices that punctuate the silence.27 Violence is heard in the scenes through sounds, such as barking dogs, hammering, sirens, alarms, and helicopters, which enhance the metallic materiality and embody an atmosphere of fear and despair. The film portrays shared spaces and moments where the audience and characters are compelled to confront each other’s presence, immersed in the sights and sounds of others. As Upton suggests, these encounters give tangible significance to subjective experiences and abstract concepts such as privacy, citizenship, and selfhood.28 This dynamic is intensified by the fact that sounds can invade our thoughts, which, depending on their intensity, can disturb one’s perceived individual stability, including the sense of personal agency.
The film utilizes sound as a critical element to construct the landscape of the Brasília metropolitan region, emphasizing the intangible aspects of urban experience and confronting them with social and political realities. The landscape is then understood as an experience through perceptive involvement, as a system of spatial combinations that leads the body to multiple sequences of interactions and sensitivity to different layers that overlap in space and time.29
Once Upon A Time …
Time-traveling Agent WA4 (Wellington Abreu) was on a mission to travel back to Brasília’s inauguration day in April 1960 and assassinate President Kubitschek. Agent WA4 agreed to the task after being arrested for the crime of squatting; as payment, he was offered a house for his family to live in. Unfortunately, the mission was unsuccessful, and the agent got lost along the way. The spaceship ran out of fuel, and the agent crash-landed in the city of Ceilândia in 2016, on the eve of President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. Once WA4 realizes the delay in his time-warp trip and that it is impossible to carry out his mission of killing Kubitschek, he joins forces with other intergalactic street warriors. Together, they form an army to attack their enemies, who they believe reside in the National Congress Building.
Once There Was Brasília depicts three overlapping periods: the occupations of the Pilot Plan urban areas and the consequent expulsion to Ceilândia in the 1970s, which could be the reason for the mission to kill the president; the current period (2016), when the agent lands in a consolidated, yet distant, dusty, and violent Ceilândia/Sol Nascente, which still lacks infrastructure; and the future, where WA4 and his scrap metal spaceship come from, during a time when the problem appears to persist without a solution.
Upon landing fifty-six years later, Agent WA4 immediately recognizes the familiar landscape of Ceilândia, as he observes its disorderly, dusty, and unpaved streets. The agent draws a parallel between Ceilândia and his home planet, Karpensthall, noting the striking similarities. He remarks, “I come from planet Karpensthall, and it is just like this here” (0:15:34 to 0:17:21). The film alludes to the expansion of Ceilândia and the development of Sol Nascente, which was once known as the largest favela in Latin America.
The agent’s statement, “it was a housing project for everyone. They put me inside a spaceship and sent me into outer space” (0:15:34 to 0:17:21), clearly alludes to the history of the displaced population in Ceilândia. He further emphasizes his desperate situation by expressing, “I am lost and have no rations. The engines are stalling, and I am running out of battery and cigarettes…” (0:38:29 to 0:39:24). Inside the confined space (Figure 6.3), Agent WA4 is accompanied by intrusive metallic noises and a mixture of static, crackling, and intermittent bursts of sound, as he attempts to establish radio communication. Faint voices, distant music, and fragments of conversation fade in and out, creating an atmosphere of anticipation and the sensation of tuning into various frequencies, while he navigates through atmospheric interference in search of a clear signal.
Other characters in the film include Marquim, a wheelchair-bound rapper who spends his time driving around Ceilândia in an old car, attending rap shows, and interacting with Andreia, an ex-convict. They first meet in the opening scene on the metal footbridge above the train tracks, where they share their thoughts: “I see things here.” “I see it all: up above, making noise.” “I see things that nobody believes, and nobody sees. I thought I was going crazy” (0:01:55 to 0:02:29). However, their references are not visual but auditory. They refer to something they can only hear—something that neither Andreia, Marquim, nor anyone else can see, but rather something they perceive and feel. “I come here to escape the radar,” adds Andreia (0:02:29).
The sound and visual landscape in Pilot Plan appear precisely three times during the film. The first scene depicts the National Congress Building (0:05:29 to 0:06:16) and shows WA4 observing it to the distant sound of cars. In the second scene (0:25:02 to 0:28:21), Marquim glances at the Ministries Esplanade, also in the distance, during the session that voted on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. It is possible to observe (Figure 6.4) the emptiness of the lawn, composing the static, monumental perspective of the well-known architectural complex, overrun by protesters, who—to the sound of helicopters, sirens, and exploding bombs—listen to the voting process. The monumental landscape of the Ministries Esplanade, formally organized to accentuate the perspective and the sturdy timelessness conveyed by the symbolic buildings, is only disturbed in the transitory situation of protests. The third instance appears in the final stretch of the film (1:30:06 to 1:30:13), when WA4 joins the other intergalactic street warriors and shatters the peaceful silence on the Esplanade, using small skulls to blow a loud trumpeting sound mixed with rattling.
As a contrasting element, all other scenes in the film take place in cramped spaces accompanied by irritating metallic noises (for example, inside of the spaceship, car, metal footbridge, and metro) or in arid and dusty environments, where the sound of the wind blowing or whistling adds to the atmosphere. The characters’ vacant reactions and open-ended dialogues, combined with extended sequences of distressing moments and prolonged shots in nearly empty spaces, along with an anarchic and dissenting montage style, purposefully exhaust the viewers’ visual analysis of the space and instead activate their auditory senses.
The urban infrastructure serves as the film’s scenery, featuring metal footbridges, train tracks, metro stations, stairways, tunnels, partition fences, and power distribution towers, all composed of metallic elements (Figure 6.5). In one scene, Marquim, in his wheelchair, stands at the base of a massive staircase leading to the footbridge that spans the train tracks, while the sound of a passing train resonates (1:30:14 to 1:31:26). Various forms of transportation pass by—cars, subways, trains, and helicopters—yet the locals remain within their vicinity. As Marquim observes, he attempts to identify a sound, slowly moving his head and eyes to determine the direction of its source. This almost static shot can be seen as a metaphor for the insurmountable divide between the satellite cities and the Pilot Plan. The audience becomes witness, as the discomfort and sense of inaccessibility, caused by the ruptures in the urban fabric and arising from the networks of infrastructure and transportation, are evident.
In the desolate landscape of walls, dust, and stripped car bodies, the passage of time is symbolized by a bonfire, accompanied by crackling sounds and dancing flames that intensify over time. The gust of wind carries more dust, causing the smoke to rise and fill the space, creating perfect harmony with the sound. As the wind dies down, a group of people stands. Is it the presence of the people, the crackling sound of the fire, the explosions, or an amalgamation of the sensations conveyed thus far that evokes the sense of fear that shrouds this scene? It is conceivable that, at this moment, the scene (see Figure 6.6) may also resonate with the spectator’s own fears, stimulated both audibly and visually, to the extent that it resonates with personal memories.
The film takes place inside the stretched-out and harrowing spaceship most of the time, a contraption made of scrap metal that, having come from the future, should supposedly be an advanced form of transportation when, in reality, nothing works. It is the snail’s pace—accented by long silences and interrupted only by high-pitched metallic sounds, hammering, and whistles—that, despite heightening feelings of helplessness, allows the spectator to dwell on the details of the scenography, constructed from the remains of everyday life that, in convergence with those noises, create a science fiction setting.
“How is it that we are able to stand the tiring scenes of Agent WA4 inside his space pod?” According to Ingá Maria [Lima Patriota], the film manages to activate the consciousness through its embodiment of the discomfort in the Brazilian political and social situation. The discomfort is felt magnified through the sluggishness of the film’s progression, coupled with the incorporation of nearly-still images and an emphasis on sound. This treatment pulls the audience from a distant, anesthetized state of onlooking, made possible by the prevalence of visual stimuli, and calls them into a more active observational role, inserting their bodies into the landscape and the urgency of the issues it contains. “The experience of his imprisoned body leads us to perceive that instead of enjoying our time and energy more, we go from one captivity to another.”30
Thus, not only image but sound, with its ability to surround the viewer, is responsible for triggering the sensations of fear, anguish, and agony that are crucial to this film. By using it so, the film effectively demonstrates how sound can shape elements such as privacy, citizenship, and selfhood.
4. Conclusion: The Sound Landscape As An Aesthetic Anguish
Once There Was Brasília portrays the daily struggle of Ceilândia’s population as they commute to Brasília, metaphorically depicting the battle against immobility, violence, exclusion, poverty, and racism—a battle only reasonably surmountable by an intergalactic army. The film constructs a sense of confinement for the spectators, highlighting the immobility experienced in the capital city’s outskirts, which are depicted as alienating, distant, and noisy.
By exposing the precariousness of life in the outskirts of an idealized capital city, the film calls attention to the country’s institutional fragility and questions the soundness of the National Congress and Brasília’s image. The portrayal of Ceilândia, posed in contradistinction to the official utopian narrative of Brasília, represents “an unequivocal totality, a symbol, or fragment that represents or is seen as a totality,”31 allowing for Brasília to serve as both a mirror and an echo of Ceilândia and emphasizing the interconnectedness of their shared experiences. Substantiating this dystopian speculation is the film’s strong relationship with the present time. If the cities of Blade Runner,32 Metropolis,33 and Alphaville34 stage the apocalyptic future as a far-off dystopian place in the genre of science fiction, dystopia in Queirós’s films clearly takes place in the present. Director Adirley Queirós skillfully recognizes and exposes the paradoxes of a supposedly progressive utopia caught upholding its tainted image. The intentionally ambiguous portrayal of Brasília allows the film to indirectly provoke fundamental contradictions and paradigms within Brazilian society, embodying a feeling of agony reflective of the despair of the political context represented off-screen.
At the film’s core is a sense of betrayal, whereby the characters find themselves incapable of untangling themselves from the mechanisms they rebel against. The film presents the apparent historical possibility of revolt with the incorporation of voiceover excerpts from significant speeches, such as Juscelino Kubitschek’s inauguration speech in Brasília (1960), Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment speech (2016)—in which she references other leaders facing similar situations, including Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek, João Goulart, and the period of dictatorship—and a speech by her successor President Michel Temer, highlighting the culmination of the coup d’état. Yet, the filmic narrative precludes a climax and sustains the impossibility of attaining solutions or prevailing within this space of reproduction. By refusing to offer the performance of mutiny, the film reinforces the idea that the subjects cannot themselves carry out a rebellion.
The sound design plays a crucial role in shaping the film’s atmosphere in terms of the urban setting as well as the perpetual sense of conspiracy, paranoia, and defeat, the landscape comprising elements that are spoken, rapped, screamed, sung, and heard, in addition to the tangible elements that construct its materiality.35 The sense of immutability, of being under constant surveillance, immobilized by overpowering structures and restricted communication within a noisy, claustrophobic landscape contribute to the real feelings of distress communicated and embodied within the film’s sound landscape. Slowly, continuously, and almost tortuously exposing the audience to the issues of the contemporary city’s condition, the film creates discomfort from a position of familiarity with that discomfort, inviting the audience to experience these feelings, if only for a few moments.
1. “Once There Was Brasília” is the film title’s official English translation, although the original title “Era uma vez Brasília” would have a more literal translation of “Once Upon a Time in Brasília,” linking this and two Sergio Leone films—Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Two other Brazilian films, also from this period, have similar titles: Once Upon a Time Veronica [Era uma vez eu, Verônica] (2012), directed by Marcelo Gomes, and Once Upon a Time in Rio [Era uma vez…] (2008), directed by Breno Silveira. Once There Was Brasília, directed by Adirley Queirós (Lisbon, Portugal: Terratreme Filmes, 2017).
2. In the glossary of “le paysage sonore: le monde comme musique,” this concept is described by Raymond Murray Schafer with the following: “the environment of sounds. Technically, any part of this environment is taken as fields of study” and “the term applies both to real environments and to abstract constructions […], especially when they are considered part of the living environment.” R. Murray Schafer, Nicolas Misdariis, Patrick Susini, and Sylvette Gleize, Le paysage sonore: le monde comme musique, Collection Domaine sauvage (Paris: Éd. Wildproject, 2010): 384.
3. Jean-Marie Schaeffer, L’expérience esthétique, NRF Essais (Paris: Gallimard, 2015).
4. The purpose of this work is precisely to trace multiple phenomenologies of these experiences back to the shared cognitive and emotional resources they utilize, which imprint upon them not only a specific orientation but also a singular character in many respects. It is the conjunction of these two features—the grounding in our basic cognitive and emotional resources and the unique way they are employed—that characterizes aesthetic experience. I will attempt, more precisely, to demonstrate that its distinctiveness lies in the fact that it appears both as an event connected to the deepest aspects of our lived life and as a singularity that emerges as if it were a separate reality. Schafer et al., Le paysage sonore.
5. In 1956, the “Pilot Plan” proposal by Lucio Costa, one of the most important modernist architects in Brazil at the time, won the capital city planning competition. From 1957 to 1960, the infrastructure and main buildings were constructed at a rapid pace so that they would be ready for inauguration day on April 21, 1960.
6. Construction workers from all over the country mainly lived in improvised settlements, including favelas and “temporary locations” or construction camps, which accounted for approximately 82,000 inhabitants in the 1960s. Aldo Paviani, “A Construção Injusta Do Espaço Urbano,” in A Conquista Da Cidade: Movimentos Populares Em Brasília, ed. Aldo Paviani (Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 1998): 115–142.
7. The plan for the construction of satellite cities was part of Lucio Costa’s overall vision, however, it was only to be fully implemented after the completion of the Pilot Plan. Maria Fernanda Derntl, “Brasília e Seu Território: A Assimilação de Princípios Do Planejamento Inglês Aos Planos Iniciais de Cidades-Satélites,” Cadernos Metrópole 22, no. 47 (2020): 123–46. https://doi.org/10.1590/2236-9996.2020-4706.
8. Paviani, “A Construção Injusta Do Espaço Urbano.”
9. The Sol Nascente sector began to be irregularly occupied in the 1990s. The process of occupation in this area occurred continuously and rapidly, and showed significant growth between 2003 and 2008, with a growth rate of 40 percent per year during that period. CODEPLAN, “Sol Nascente/Pôr Do Sol: Um Retrato Demográfico e Socioeconômico,” Nota Técnica (Distrito Federal: Companhia de Planejamento do Distrito Federal, 2019). The Administrative Region—RA XXXII—Sol Nascente/Pôr do Sol, was officially created in 2019, separating it from the Ceilândia Administrative Region. CODEPLAN, “Pesquisa Distrital Por Amostra de Domicílios – Companhia de Planejamento Do Distrito Federal – Sol Nascente/Pôr Do Sol,” Sol Nascente/Pôr Do Sol (Distrito Federal: CODEPLAN, 2022a). Ceilândia and Sol Nascente/Pôr do Sol account for 14 percent of the total population of the Federal District today, with an official urban population of 443.504 people (population of Ceilândia: 350.347; population of Sol Nascente: 93.217 people), and the population of Federal District is 3.091.667, according to PDAD (Pesquisa Distrital Por Amostra de Domicílios / District Sampling Household Survey) 2021. COPEPLAN, “Pesquisa Distrital Por Amostra de Domicílios – Companhia de Planejamento Do Distrito Federal-Ceilândia,” Ceilândia (Distrito Federal: CODEPLAN, 2022b).
10. In the first decades of the 2000s, films by authorial directors sought new discourses and narratives within the cinematographic language. This period is called “pós-retomada” and covers films like O Cheiro do Ralo (2006), Heitor Dhalia; O Céu de Suely, Karim Ainouz (2006); and authors like Kleber Mendonça Filho, Marcelo Gomes, and Anna Muylaert.
11. Mohsen Mostafavi, “Agonistic Urbanism,” in Ethics of the Urban: The City and the Spaces of the Political, ed. Mohsen Mostafavi (Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2017): 12.
12. See also “Brasília contemporânea: ambiguidades e contradições da cidade vistas pelas lentes do cinema” (Contemporary Brasilia: Ambiguities and Contradictions of the City Seen by the Lenses of Cinema). Liz Sandoval, Rogério Rezende, and Luciana Saboia, “Brasília Contemporânea: Ambiguidades e Contradições Da Cidade Vistas Pelas Lentes Do Cinema,” ARS (São Paulo) 18, no. 39 (2020): 201–23. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-0447.ars.2020.163780.
13. Chantal Mouffe, “Radical Politics as Counter Hegemonic Intervention: The Role of Cultural Practices,” in Mostafavi, Ethics of the Urban.
14. Artistic and cultural practices can play an important role in the creation of a multiplicity of sites in which the dominant hegemony would be questioned. “They should be seen as counter-hegemonic interventions that, by contributing to the construction of new practices and new subjectivities, aim at subverting the dominant hegemony.” Chantal Mouffe, “Radical Politics as Counter Hegemonic Intervention,” 228.
15. Brandon Labelle, Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance (Brussels: Goldsmiths Press, 2018).
16. Tiago Carvalho, “A Estética Do Som Na Arquitectura e Na Paisagem,” in Filosofia e Arquitectura Da Paisagem: Um Manual, ed. Adriana Veríssimo Serrão (Lisboa: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2012): 143–54.
17. Carvalho, “A Estética Do Som Na Arquitectura e Na Paisagem,” 144.
18. Dell Upton, “Sound as Landscape,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 1 (2007): 24-35. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43323752.
19. Carvalho, “A Estética Do Som Na Arquitectura e Na Paisagem,” 143–54.
20. Daniel Deshays, Pour Une Écriture Du Son [50 Questions] (Paris: Klincksieck, 2006), 20.
21. James J. Gibson investigated the psychology of perception and how closely an individual’s subjective interpretations align with objective meanings, a question that he has explored through experimental methods. In his book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, published in 1966, Gibson introduced several significant aspects pertaining to the study of perception. When examining the auditory system, it becomes evident that its function goes beyond facilitating hearing alone. It also includes the arousal of auditory sensations, enabling the identification of an event’s direction and nature for orientation and recognition. Moreover, Gibson emphasizes that the auditory system has the ability to register one’s own vocal sounds, allowing for the control of sequential patterns of vocal sounds, as well as the monitoring of vocal utterances, as in human speech. James Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 1966).
22. Labelle, Sonic Agency, 7.
23. Gibson, The Senses Considered, 91.
24. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, A Arte do Cinema: Uma Introdução [Film Art: An Introduction], trans. Roberta Gregoli (Campinas, SP: edusp, 2013).
25. Bordwell and Thompson, A Arte Do Cinema [Film Art], 410.
26. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), a Western film, and Once Upon a Time in America (1984), a gangster film, both directed by Sergio Leone, are evident references.
27. The sound design and editing were made by Francisco Craesmeyer, Guile Martins, Daniel Turini, and Fernando Henna.
28. Upton, “Sound as Landscape.”
29. Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (New York: Verso, 2005); Jean-Marc Besse, O Gosto do Mundo: Exercícios de Paisagem, trans. Annie Cambe (Rio de Janeiro: EdUERJ, 2014); John B. Jackson, “A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time,” Oz 8, no. 1 (1986). https://doi.org/10.4148/2378-5853.1111; James Corner, The Landscape Imagination: Collected Essays of James Corner 1990-2010 (New York: Princeton Architecture Press, 2014).
30. Ingá Maria, “Era Uma Vez Brasília: Se Não Puder Ser Livre, Sê Um Mistério,” in IV Fronteira – Festival Internacional do Filme Documentário e Experimental, IV Estado Crítico: Residência de Crítica de Cinema (Goiânia, Brazil: Barroca Filmes, 2018): 12–15.
31. Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future.
32. Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros., 1982).
33. Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang (Germany: Parufamet, 1927).
34. Alphaville, directed by Jean-Luc Godard (France: Athos Film, 1965).
35. Kevin Lynch, A Imagem Da Cidade (São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006); Upton, “Sound as Landscape,” 24–35; Besse, O Gosto do Mundo.