The Brutalist

My boss had to step off towards the end of the day because she needed to attend a house viewing. It could the 'the one' for her so I didn't want to deprive her of that, so I opted to step up for the last few hours. While I was a bit sweaty, I actually ended up doing a decent job. I answered every question about continuity swiftly and pointed something out to the director who later came up and thanked me for the spot. I left Friday in a great little mood, so I thought I'd treat myself. With Rebecca away tonight, I took myself to the movies to check out The Brutalist... Here's my LetterBoxd write up.

During the film's epilogue a character sheds some light on the philosophy of Brutalism, revealing that the work isn't intended to make a statement, rather it's reflective of nothingness and how humans need to accept the lack of meaning in the world.

The Brutalist is a story told in two halves, kept alive by a refreshing dedication to sustained shots that permit performance to do the heavy lifting - the on-screen results are often electrifying. 

Act one has a great sense of buildup because it's about people with dreams. Act two on the other hand is about the cost of those dreams and how people let you down - it's messy, ugly and disappointing... and I mean this quite literally.

The moment an in-world train goes off the rails, so does the storytelling. Scenes feel increasingly fractured and devoid of context. We hop over to Italy for ambiguous reasons (because the plot demands it, apparently) and the final few scenes with Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones feel hurried and unresolute. It kinda lost me in the last stretch which is heartbreaking because everything that came before was exquisite.

Does this mean the film is in harmony with the art style it champions? Possibly. Does that also mean the conclusion is inherently unsatisfying? Almost definitely.