Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed unfolds in the form of a humorous nature documentary, with the Homo bureaucratus as its subject. This very common species has specific behaviors, a familiar habitat, and interesting survival mechanisms. Director Donald Brittain, who made the film in 1979, delivers the deadpan voice-over himself.
He shows the bureaucrat in its natural surroundings across the world—in Germany, the Vatican, Communist Hungary, and his home country of Canada. Everywhere, this universally despised creature exhibits the same characteristics: a deep aversion to change, a love of rules, order, and predictability, and an obsession with paper. We see the species at work—for instance, an official on a tiny island whose task is to record meticulously the births and deaths, which hardly ever occur.
As it was shot in the 1970s, the footage captures a pre-internet era, with only a rudimentary computer hinting at an unimaginable future. Nevertheless, there is nothing to suggest that the digital revolution has put an end to the bureaucrat.
