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3.1.16.3 Bricks and shrines.
** Where do bricks appear?
We first see bricks in the shrine at Ilam: it is made of bricks, and panes of
glass, and candles. A very auspicious and deeply ironic reference by Jackson to later
appearances of bricks in the film... or is it? This is another incidence of life being
more ironic and cruel than art could pretend to be. Trial testimony stated that piles of
bricks were scattered in the gardens of Ilam, and that the shrine constructed by the real
Juliet and the real Pauline was made of bricks. We next see bricks in a pile by the side
of the garage, while the two girls stand in the twilight in front of a bonfire. It is the
beginning of their last night together at Ilam. On the morning of the murder, Juliet
collects a half-brick from that pile by the garage. Honora is murdered with the half-brick
in Pauline's stocking and the image of the brick has come full circle--from the mystical
to the grotesquely prosaic.
