4v291o

the kind of cinema I didn't know we needed, but we definitely do

it's good, but it's still a bit too much right now

Watched on Monday April 21, 2025.

Over the course of this three-and-a-half hour epic, there are moments where I definitely felt like Brady Corbet understood the assignment. Like when László's initial benefactor Harrison Lee Van Buren drags him along with his family to their ancestral hill that shall become the sight of László's magnum opus. The homage to a scene from Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal is striking. From that moment, we are forewarned: this will not end well. There's also the magnificent aerial shot of a steam railroad paving its way through the American heartland — something which could easily be interpreted as a channeling of William Turner's groundbreaking industrial revolution painting Rain, Steam and Speed. Now, Britain has handed over the baton, and it is America that has become the new colossus.

But with great ambition comes great room for failure. And these powerful evocations of artistic greatness become all the more poignant because, the longer the Brutalist stretches on, the clearer it becomes that the center cannot hold. That is despite Adrien Brody's towering performance and a massive musical score. Too many scenes seem hastily assembled, as if they had planned the whole film with six more months to work on it and then needed to stitch everything together within a week. While the tonal shift from heavy to slightly more frivolous in the first half works rather well, too many of the film's frequent transitions between moods and plot points seem half-hearted. Erecting and then tearing down the vision of post-war America is an ambitious project, but it does not help it when the narrative is overloaded with scenes whose only purpose is to pile onto the giant heap of misery that is László's experience as a Jewish holocaust survivor in the U.S. The Brutalist's peculiar ending is a final stark reminder that subversiveness only really works when you set it up well. It seems that Corbet tried to build himself a monument but forgot the foundation. I'm sorry, but this ain't it, Brady.

It's hard to really be okay after this film, because every five minutes it dumps another layer of trauma on you. But Bronstein manages to do that with such poise that you never know whether you should be shocked, disgusted, or simply have pity on Rose Byrne's character, which, by the way, must earn her an Oscar nomination; anything else would be blasphemy

a refreshingly crisp film in a difficult time
goes to show how much cinema can sometimes do with so little

there are some beautiful shots, but overall it is a bit too much to bear. life in rural China in the 90s is loud, brutal, and traumatizing and it sure felt so. I guess that's the point. but today, the lengths to which huo meng goes to showcase this weigh a bit too heavily on me

Watched on Sunday January 26, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 24, 2025.

a film that carries a special significance if you've lived there yourself; a cult classic, long before you've even seen it

it's astounding how well kaurismäki's trademark finnish understated style carries over into other countries and their cultural sensitivities

seeing something you hold dear being transformed into something you hold even dearer through somebody else's eyes: such is the power of great cinema

12 men getting sick (12 times)

rip david lynch, long live the finnish sauna

Drifting Clouds (1996) and Fallen Leaves (2023) are a curious cinematic couple produced by Finnish kino posterboy Aki Kauriskämi: They're 27 years apart and even form part of different trilogies (the former being the first of his "Finland trilogy", while the latter serves as an addendum to the "Proletarian trilogy"). And still, they feel like twins separated at birth.

Fallen Leaves takes a lot of obvious clues from Drifting Clouds, ranging from the tramway scenes to the recycling of an old Finnish chanson. But most of all, both of them succeed because Kaurismäki delivers on what he does best: serving small glimmers of hope in a world that seems stacked against its protagonists all too often. It's refreshing to see careful optimism hatched in such delicate technicolor furs.

more social anthropology should be taught through witchcraft and vampire reindeer

keeping the pacing reasonable in such a short feature is daunting at best and there are points at which this feels emotionally overappealing, but casting that aside, it is a breathtaking piece of animation

hauntingly poignant

I don't think you can walk out of this and think all is good and well that happens in Israel

at its simplest, it's a plea for a tiny bit of humanity in a world where war, famine, death and destruction reign supreme

first it's hiroshima and then they do the japs like that, the audacity

happy new year!

oh to be a snow princess in a soviet fairytale

einfach wild

This review may contain spoilers.

Towards the end, there is a certain comic book-esque aspect to how good the goodies and how bad the baddies are, but otherwise it's a nice little tongue-in-cheek yet candid tale of the powers that may be

arsenal forever!

now I understand why '68 failed

described to me as "mr. darcy smoking a t before acting" and I gotta say that's pretty accurate

I only watched the first three hours of this, but I think you get the gist of it

goes in the category of "intriguing" and "been there, done that", a lot of east asian wiseman in it and definitely some highlights; could've done without the 20 minute dismembering of a sheep though, but I guess that's part of the deal when you screen nine hours of nomad life

vaguely unsettling, but it has its moments

watching this on the eve of the syrian revolution somehow hit differently in retrospect

this one goes out to all the searchers, dreamers and perseverers

tbh you need to have an extremely high IQ to comprehend the subtle nuances that coppola is evoking here

this is jake paul level genius; think cars: the movie, but instead it's spaceships and the protagonist is a jet-fuelled ocean steamer called lightning mcqueef

ani definitely ain't okay

Watched on Tuesday July 24, 2018.

Watched on Tuesday May 28, 2013.

they made a whole film about my procrastination and now I feel terribly seen

zack snyder: how badly do you wanna be the superhero of your own film?
matthew silentcourter: yes

a damn fine piece of New Jersey propaganda

the scene where they clink the glasses is peak cinema

together with Spur der Steine from 1966, these two films serve as an eerily fitting frame for the rise and fall of the GDR

Berlin - Ecke Schönha is bittersweet. it's tragic, in many ways. but it also breathes propagandistic hope and life into a deserted youth: that new beginnings are possible, not in the imperialist west, but right here in East Berlin, if you only give it a chance and turn yourself around (and probably the FDJ)

nine years later, that wishful thinking has given way to grand disillusionment about a system that promised much but delivered little. director Gerhard Klein can already smell the ruse in 1957, given how painstakingly he portrays the collectivist pressure working on our juvenile protagonist. love trumps all, except the berlin wall

80 years later, an average night out in Le Havre still consists of flirting, boozing, unpleasant encounters at the docks and trying to escape your irreconcilable past

a profoundly strange movie whose motifs have aged better than its special effects

the sound design is stellar, but in just about everything else it falls short of fury road -- still entertaining though

a disted piece of cinematic craft that has much to say about the suppressed side of a society that is afraid to question its own heteronormativity

things always get messy when you bring in the greeks -- a bit too much hyperactive splatter for me, but I appreciate the thought; also: menas jokas mentioned

pretty good for a film that was written and directed by chatgpt

the cinematography is stunning, but in the end it's a bit too much medieval trauma porn for me (much like 'the devil's bath')

decent film but massive sound design and banger soundtrack — we might have a lot to look forward to with neo sora

I wept bitterly

I have a soft spot for revelatory East Asia cinema, but this one definitely takes the "how the fuck did everyone agree in this to this documentary" cake

bonnie tyler's 'total eclipse of the heart' will never sound the same again

Wiseman will be ed as one of the great cinematic chroniclers of the American collective psyche

this is simply really good and succinct cinema — no needless embellishments or careless gimmicks, just 20 minutes, a bit of philosophy, and a ridiculous line-up of collaborators

had no expectations and was sufficiently pleased

meditative, almost pleasant even, but without inspiring any particularly strong emotions

my annual top picks (subject to change)

1. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
2. Fallen Leaves
3. Evil Does Not Exist
4. Aftersun
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. Drive My Car
7. Nomadland
8. Undine
9. Parasite
10. Corpus Christi

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Come and See
• Raise the Red Lantern
• In the Mood for Love
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Endless Poetry
• Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance
• The Piano Teacher
• Persona
• The Hunt
• The 400 Blows

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.