The Brutalist is a very long and strange movie, with moments of brilliance, moments of confusion (usually when the protagonist is strung out on heroin) and then it resolves with a surprisingly satisfying conclusion.
The 3 1/2 hour movie has an actual intermission with a neat countdown clock (evidently in theaters, it was a 15-minute intermission, but at home it was only one minute). And fortunately, for such a long movie, it wasn't boring, though it was occasionally slower than I'd like.
It does make the mistake of occasionally trying to immerse the viewer into the confusion and disorientation of the main character's drug-addled state, but confusing visual storytelling just causes a confused viewer, and I was pulled out of the movie in two key scenes, where I was left wondering what the heck was going on.
The movie has an odd tendency to not resolve plot points, something I find just incredibly annoying. Did the rich guy's son assault the girl or not? (I don't know). Did the main character go to Israel with his wife or not? How was he able to rebuild his career after the fiasco depicted at the climax of the film? When and how did the traumatized girl start speaking? Where did the rich guy go? Interestingly, Chris and I disagreed on that point - he thought that not explaining was a playful and artistic move on the part of the filmmakers.
Speaking of playful and artistic - one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie was filmed in Carrara, Italy, in the same marble quarry where Michelangelo carved the sublime La Pietà. Interestingly, the statue was vandalized in 1972 by a Hungarian Catholic named Laszlo Toth, who believed he was God, and the main character of the movie was named after him. I'm not sure of the symbolism of that. Was it intended to show that the protagonist was crazy and hubristic? Maybe it was to show that he wasn't a fan of marble? (He did prefer cement to stone.)
One thing I though was brilliant was how they mostly didn't show the Holocaust (and it's not a Holocaust movie), but it still formed a shadowy backbone to the movie, creating a marvelous sense of unease and dread. The trauma it caused in the main character, his wife, and his niece was key to many of the later scenes in the movie and in the surprisingly satisfying resolution.
Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good (but not great), and it was well-acted and well-cast. The cinematography was solid and bare (rather like the titular architectural movement), and even the credits were designed to look brutalist (though I've read the actual architecture depicted mostly wasn't) which was a nice touch.
(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):
- Conclave (Absorbing conspiracy at the Vatican; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
- Emilia Pérez (Stereotypes, redemption, and transition; Cathy: 2, Chris: 2)
- Dune: Part Two (Best rendition of a classic SF novel: Cathy: 3, Chris: 3)
- The Substance (Excellent horror movie ruined by ending; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
- The Brutalist (Troubled architect explores the pitfalls of patronage; Cathy: 5, Chris: 5)
- Wicked (Beautiful, yet boring; Cathy: 6, Chris: 6)
- Anora (Steaming pile of говно; Cathy: 8, Chris: 7)
- Nickel Boys (Civil rights meets a feverish collage of an arthouse film; Cathy: 7, Chris: 8)
- Unwatched - A Complete Unknown (A biopic about the early days of Bob Dylan's career)
- Unwatched - I'm Still Here/Ainda Estou Aqui (A Brazilian politician's wife makes a new life after her husband is disappeared in 1971)
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