Went round two with The Brutalist and holy fucking shit, honestly. Even what I thought were little wobbles seem to be perfectly braided into the narrative. Devastating and still hopeful somehow.
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I love that in its format/running time it’s a monument to big artistic ambition inasmuch as its subject is. I love how it uses architecture to convey its ideas so beautifully. I love Adrian Brody’s face!
My big question mark was over the epilogue, which is so tonally abrupt and rips you out of the rhythm of the film. This time, the answers it provides about Toth’s vision and determination - and its final coda of defiant artistic immortality - felt unbelievably satisfying and even joyful.
I can’t recommend seeing this film a second time enough. So much of it plays a bit differently with knowledge of where it’s headed, and its themes and circularities and ideas really become all the more edifying.
yessssss! repeat viewings really do open it up in a big way. was glad to finally write critically about it last week, cause i've found a lot of the conversation about it too fixated on the stuff aroud the movie.
I was in raptures when the epilogue appeared. I wasn't expecting it all. It answered so many questions about whether America ever embraced him or his work - and as for that reveal about the dimensions of the rooms - oof, what a punch to the gut. Hopeful but devastatingly poignant too.
And able to appreciate its long takes even more. Laszlo and Erzsebet's train station reunion...the wandering around the house by Harry desperately calling out for his father... the overhead train explosion scene-all masterful examples of the camera commenting on dual examples of hope and desperation
I had go fight not to go straight into the next showing when I got out of seeing it. Super eager to go again and indulging in the soundtrack on the side. So good.
I told my wife that when I heard the first bars of the soundtrack I knew I could relax and was in the best hands for 3 and a half hours. “Relax?” She said…
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