35/47
Referred to in close-up: What do we need the Venice Film Festival for?
Narrative
When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, a mysterious and wealthy client changes their lives forever. IMDb Editor-in-Chief Arno Kazarian offers a quick look at the 12 films he’s screening at the 2024 New York Film Festival, including Anora and the dangerous, weirdly erotic Misericordia. Laszlo Toth was also the name of the man who destroyed Michelangelo’s La Pietà statue with a hammer. (2024).
Brutalist is full of surprises
The characters are not what you expect – not in a Scooby Doo kind of ending, but in a more subtle, gradual way that real people reveal themselves – they reveal themselves over time, in a new context or when circumstances demand they do so. . The conditions here are post WWII horror. Laszlo, played by Adrien Brody, a Jewish architect who escaped the clutches of bloody Europe, slips into the welcoming arms of America.
What is the lesson?
Or he does – in a frenzied opening sequence that literally brings to mind a birth at the Statue of Liberty. His journey becomes a perpetual journey through life’s many horrors – existential, professional, relational, intimate – without taking his eyes off the prize of great achievement and never assessing the value of that prize to begin with. Is it the shameful realization that his success came not in spite of his trauma, but because of it? Do we owe a wrongdoing?
But there is no novel
To culture, land, power and the forces that exercise them in creating our brutal legacy? Are our lives burning gasoline on the way to something more meaningful? The movie is charming, cool and not boring (have you heard it’s long?). It feels like the movie is based on an old mystery novel, from which I would like to extract certain details that the movie refuses to share.
See the full program of the fall 62nd New York Film Festival
And any deeper understanding of Lazslo’s arrival, the machinations of his family, his country, and his entrenchment, for better or for worse, we must build upon.