The Brutalist

Sometimes a film MUST be 3 and a half hours long

I’ve been crashing at the homie’s crib in New Jersey waiting for my movers to arrive from LA the last week. I hadn’t seen my apartment in New York yet either so I got on the 8:30am ferry and rode across the river at which point I was informed by the broker that he couldn’t let me in until 5pm. The Russian Turkish Baths on 10th didn’t open til 12pm, but there was a 70mm showing of The Brutalist at the 2nd Avenue Theater beginning at 11am.

So, I got a terrible marzipan cappuccino down the block, dropped a heat rock, and took my seat.

You can divide filmgoers into two camps this year: those who’ve seen The Brutalist and those who haven’t. Those who have seen it don’t say much, they simply urge you to see it. The emotion is similar to the end of In the Mood for Love where a lover tells a secret to a wall in Angkor Wat. Those who haven’t seen it complain about its runtime assuming it’s not worth the sit.

While this is a decidedly Old Testament film, I turn to the New Testament:

Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

***

The Brutalist is a 3.5 hour film, which didn’t used to be such an outlier.

I remember as a kid going to see Dances with Wolves, which I promptly fell asleep in. There was The Last Emperor, which I didn’t care for because the Emperor was such a bumsicle. But as I got older, I really fell in love with the 3+ hour epic, especially a matinee.

The first nearly 3 hour film I can remember enjoying is Braveheart, which runs 2 hours and 58 minutes. There wasn’t a boring moment, there were insane psychic Irish people screaming “It’s my island!”, and people were getting hacked to bits every 45 minutes. For the under-40 crowd, it was like watching a triple Game of Thrones finale in a really uncomfortable chair with a giant soda and cineplex nachos accompanied by deliciously processed cheese.

I can definitively say it was a vibe.

I started to seek out epic 3 hour films and eventually rented or stole from Blockbuster, Godfather 2, Deer Hunter, as well as Seven Samurai. My instinct at that time was that if a film was 3 hours long, it’s probably pretty good. There is a story that warrants 3 hours and if somebody let this writer/director make a 3 hour film, well, you should absolutely see it.

My favorite film is 3 hours and 57 minutes long: Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day, about a youth gang romance in post-World War 2 Taiwan.

Fast forward to 2017 when I began shopping feature scripts around and most producers were telling me that a film has to be 90 to 110 minutes MAX. Anything over that and the audience is cooked. I personally have never written anything that warrants 3 hours of someone’s attention, but I appreciate when someone else does.

I want to see it.

And I think that the lack of 3 hour films or our aversion to them says a lot about the way our society is headed. We want quick answers. We want clear conclusions. We want to know what’s right and wrong.

A 3 hour film usually doesn’t offer any of those things unless that 3 hour film is Avengers End Game.

Do I think the 3 hour film is the answer to box office woes? Absolutely not. The Brutalist has done $18.9 mill at the box office to date. It’s great and doubled it’s budget, but it’s not moving the dial for theatrical.

As I wrote that sentence, I realized it was my rotted Los Angeles brain that even thought about film in that context because, PERSONALLY, I feel The Brutalist is the film of the decade so far.

It’s the best film I’ve seen since There Will Be Blood.

There wasn’t a single second of this film I wasn’t engaged despite the fact that the entire narrative revolves around the erection of a building. Stare at me crazy all you want, but the film of the decade is a 3 hour HGTV epic set in post-World War 2 DOYLESTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.

It is the acute attention to the human condition defying easy answers and commonly held beliefs that powers this film every second of the way. The writer, director, and actors all drop pretension and bare their truths representing these characters.

Without giving away the plot, what drew me into this film was the acceptance of actions that perhaps on the surface contradicted each characters’ values, but in the context of the greater film painted a startlingly true portrait affirming those same values.

It is very difficult to speak about this film and explain the contradictions in the hero, László Tóth, but I want you to trust that the details I provide below will not spoil the film.

Here are some of the contradictions:

He loves his wife and niece with all his heart, but is separated from them. When he arrives in America, his first stop is a brothel.

He is a brilliant Architect, but resigns himself to designing furniture and doing heroin. As all that is happening, there’s a beautiful moment in a water/food line at the local Church where they run out of food right before it is his turn. In front of him is an African man with his son. László sticks up for the kid asking them to feed him. When they reject his request, he promises to be there first thing in the morning to hold a spot in line for the kid. He’s self-destructive to himself, but empathetic and loving to others.

When he is reunited with his wife, Erzsébet, she cannot walk and it disappoints him. To that point of the film, his love is presented as unconditional and true, but her inability to walk suddenly spoils it and you judge him.

That’s all I can give away without ruining the film, but a Goethe quote hangs over the entire experience: “The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.”

It’s manifested in relationships between Nation-State and Citizen, Employer-Employee, Man and Wife, but ultimately it is Man and Himself that is the ultimate slaver.

This contradiction is at the core of every interaction of the film and it’s what you explore within yourself watching it. How free are we? How much do we imprison those we love with our actions? How much do we imprison ourselves?

It’s a topic that warranted 3 hours.

In relationships, we have a tendency to overreact to things. We can grab onto any one action or piece of evidence and build a case against those we love. The urge to define someone or some action is really inhumane. It doesn’t further your actual understanding of anything because we don’t actually know shit about shit.

The most obvious statement is that this is currently playing out in our National Politics.

No one action tells us every thing we need to know about someone or something. But if you spend 3 hours with anyone… you may not be able to define them, but I guarantee you will understand them.

The Brutalist, invest 3.5 hours and go see it.