This layer upon layer of artificial lights, whether it is indirect, diffused or reflected, emphasized the fact that humanity or anything natural had been removed from the city of Los Angeles.  Compared with Blade Runner, Brazil’s light palette was much less colourful.  Gilliam emphasized the dominating gray and monotonous world of Sam Lowry.  Most of the action occurred at interior spaces, where the coldness of the architecture, as a representation of the banality of bureaucracy, was amplified by the use of blue white light.  In contrast to the gray world of the working class was the decadently colourful life of Sam’s mother.  She represents the upper class whose raison d’etre was to consume.  Her apartment is full of drama and colour.  The restaurants and shopping malls she frequents are the only places where colour lights dominated.  Thus, Gilliam used the contrast between candy coloured neon and gray, blue light to show how life in Brazil had been reduced to the two extremes of work/ bureaucracy and consumption.