The Brutalist has, in the last few weeks, become the film to see from 2024. This is not only because it's an Oscar movie, but because it's one that's actually supposed to be good. It's also over three and a half hours long, which means it at least thinks it's up to something important. It is a cacophonous film, featuring overlapping dialogue and voiceovers, diegetic needledrops that cross edits and a nondiegetic score that builds to staggering foghorns. It has multiple aspect ratios, slow-motion footage, time-lapse footage, montages, documentary reels, dizzying camera angles, disorienting close-up oners, and, obviously, grand reveals of monumental structures. The film has two main parts, titled "Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival" and "Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty," with an "overture" and an epilogue. Part 1 expresses a whiggishness, mainly about America but also about the rest of the world. It feels pleasantly old-fashioned, as lon...
"We are in the world, not against it." - Ursula K. Le Guin