Right, so the race for Best Actor is thoroughly taking shape, and is wide open as far as I’m concerned. But I hear that no Best Actor category is complete, without the work of Adrien Brody. And The Brutalist provides the ideal turnout for me, since I go into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it; other than its title, Adrien Brody, and the runtime that appeared before my ticket when I purchase it. It’s always the dream to go into a movie under zero influence, and for a movie such as this, with all those nominations, I can hardly believe it. It’s onto The Brutalist alone to educate me on its glory 💪
László Tóth (Adrien Brody) has arrived in the U.S.A, as an immigrant Jew escaping Hungary directly following the second world war. He initially lives with his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), working as a carpentry hand, and waiting for his wife and niece to also make the trip. Customer, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pierce), discovers that László is a famed architect in Budapest, and invites him into his upper circles. Harrison commissions a community center to be built under László’s guidance, and so will begin a long and arduous project. The Brutalist is directed by Brady Corbet.
Hey, an old-fashion intermission means I get to do something I never do, and write about this movie at the halfway point. So far, the quality is undeniable, and Brody’s performance is starlight – Brody complete inhabits László Tóth, and is nowhere to be seen. But might I wonder if this movie is just to be concerning László constructing a building? 🤔 The first act moved along, to the scene where Harrison is marching his party guests up the hill, and it gave me a quick minute to decide that I don’t think this is a movie that has the intentionality to contain any stiff shifts or sharp surprises. Because The Brutalist is not Saltburn, is it? Harrison’s home is safe from a “moth” invasion. I think we are an hour-and-forty into this 215 minute movie, and so far, my prediction has held out 🤞 The movie is thoroughly plotted though, involving a wide range of the immigrant experience. I’m somewhat at a loss, in not having seen The Pianist before this, to assess Brody’s goal striking best against this; but I am a fan so far. And Guy Peirce – sure, fine. Here I am still waiting for Felicity Jones to show up too. A mother-and-daughter couple in the session with me have described the movie as “fine”, as we catch some sunrays in the middle of our afternoon intermission, and so I’ll pinch their assessment for now. I could’ve used an intermission, and a toilet break, for The Killers of the Flower Moon, I’ll tell you that, and I wouldn’t mind if intermissions start catching on again 😅 I’ll write again after the credits.
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Woah-ho, so The Brutalist got good! But let me continue by walking through my thoughts in real time. Because, how long’s the second act? About an hour and forty? Well, I probably spent three quarters of that runtime coming to terms with thinking, “I just don’t know what’s going on”. What am I supposed to be learning from this? I also should’ve said this initially, but the sound design is immaculate, and enhances what would otherwise be good, but uneventful shots. More than the overall movie, in terms of awards, the sound category is where I would get most excited for this movie 🤗 Then at the rape scene, at least something was happening, although entirely sickly in nature. I got to thinking about the rich and their confidence, how poor people are judged for their hangups and caution, but how some people are brave and unencumbered no matter what they have in their bank account. Is that what The Brutalist was about? Another theory was that The Brutalist was another There Will Be Blood, where László remaining unknowable was the point, melding together how he doesn’t have sex, but is maniacal in his work. He’s like a poor version of Daniel Day-Lewis’s Plainview, going crazy with control, while Plainview had control and couldn’t get enough 🤔 But then László does have good sex with his wife, so that theory’s out the window. Ah, but then as Ezrsébet (Felicity Jones) is marching into Harrison’s house, right after she had pleaded to László that this country was sick, I accounted for America and Christianity, how László was building a monolith to a religion he didn’t even believe in, and how László’s backers still treated him like a pauper. I remembered how László and Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé) first met, waiting in line for handouts in “the name of Jesus”, and they had run out. This is backed up by the movie’s aggressive car scene, where László shouts that he and Ezrsébet are only in America because they had nowhere to go, and gives clarity to the puzzling turn of events that had Attila’s wife lying that László had come onto her, because she didn’t want him there. And then, László’s fantastic construction does indeed have the Christian cross on the floor at midday, but is forever upside down on the roof – a mark of the devil. Oh, and then this, in turn, lines up with how the Statue of Liberty is depicted on the poster, and as László first arrives in the States, as if to remark that the liberty promise is askew, when at first, I just considered the shot an artistic perspective 😮 All this, and I don’t know if that’s the right interpretation, but at least it gives me something! Before this realisation, the best I could’ve said of The Brutalist was, it’s a well-made 3-hour journey to an uninspired destination. But even The Brutalist may be aware of that, in its ever-chugging pacing, and accounted for the negativity, in the epilogue by Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy/Ariane Labed), essentially telling the audience to forget the journey, so long as the destination is sound, and understood. Then it reminds us how Zsófia also started this movie, and ends this movie, and always had the clearest sense that the Jewish peoples needed to get to their homeland to be saved. I think it’s funny that The Brutalist is probably what Megalopolis was trying to be, about ignoring the noise to the sides of a golden future; but where Megalopolis was focused on obtaining the perfect “society”, The Brutalist is about people, and community – a much more humanist angle that resonates wholesomely. And still, it’s a very Jewish message: an intellectual experience for me, but made for the Jewish people in the same way Barbie and Poor Things are exclusively for women to understand first. But through the way this movie is self-aware and wields its enormity in form, it is a masterpiece in film construction. And will probably stay with me for quite some time.
Throughout this movie, I had settled on a 3.0 in my evaluation, as a hearty movie that’s subject matter left me uninterested. But the last 20 minutes, and my own decided context, make for an understanding that concludes this is a most admirable production 😃 Now I see the hype, and the potential in The Brutalist as a Best Picture contender. But, at the same time, the knock on this movie would be that I still wasn’t overly captured while watching it, when some movies can manage to be cataclysmic emotional jaunts throughout. I wonder, is a movie more valuable as a two-hour thrill ride that leaves you energized, or a solemn plod to one place that has you thinking about it afterwards? How does one evaluate the entire experience, compared to the lasting emotion lesson thereafter? Personally, I like both, but they do seem at polar ends of the spectrum of what a movie can do. The Brutalist is also made for a narrower audience in mind, someone who has real hand experience as an immigrant, and while I certainly take the moral out of it, and can see its excellence, how does it compare to something that is more universally relatable? Hey, is there even such a thing as “universal appeal” when, as this movie suggests, what might be mainstream and common to some, still lacks inclusion for others? Ultimately, I’m going to settle on the same rating I gave Barbie and Poor Things, and with it, a total acknowledgement of craftmanship and intent. A gigantic undertaking, with the direction, Adrien Brody, and the sound design, as the major champions.
4.0
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