the brutalist – Life of the Mind

Plus: the 10 Best Films seen.

My viewing habits finally caught up with me, as did the looming specter of joblessness. As I’ve mentioned before, in the past I’d usually become rundown by this point, powered as I was by caffeine and black-and-white cookies before the ownership changed. I think part of it was the nature of the scheduling as well: given how long a lot of the films were this year, there’s not a whole lot of time left, which in turn limits what’s programmed. Even if I hadn’t been able to do another 5-film-day, I still ended with a couple decent to pretty good films.

Starting off with the good was Carson Lund’s Eephus (Grade: A-). I probably wouldn’t have seen it if one-time editor Vikram Murthi hadn’t praised it on Twitter; sports are not really my thing, and I only really started watching them at all once I realized I could see them in the gay bar (because, you know… Men™). Turns out you don’t really need to know much of anything about baseball. The mechanics of the game aren’t as important as the fact that it gives the men an excuse to gather and memorialize their preferred field before a school is built on it. Lund is best known as a cinematographer, most notably with No-Budge stalwart Tyler Taormina. He caries the same sort of relaxed, slightly deadpan energy one associates with such films.

Which isn’t to say it isn’t screamingly funny, ie a man hitting a pitch and then immediately faceplanting on the ground. Much of that humor comes through in the banter and background dialogue as the men razz each other, complain about the drive to Duster’s Field, and overall mourn the passing of time. As the game stretches on, you get the sense that none of them really want to stop playing, if only because that means the friendship gets dissolved. Truth be told, you also start to feel the length of the game as it goes on. Lund keeps it easy-going, cutting between people around the ballpark and the players in free-flowing plot, so when actual tension starts to rise up it harshes the mellow a bit. What remains is the pleasure of seeing these men interact with each other, their good-nature camraderie, the sheer love of the game even if they aren’t very good at it. Like the pitch that gives the film its title, time seems to be suspended for a bit before it starts up again. And hey, like a wiseman once said: everything dies baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies, some day comes back.

“Things coming back” is the ostensible subject of the last movie I saw at the Festival, Mati Diop’s Berlin-winning documentary Dahomey (Grade: B-). The name refers to the African kingdom – now the Republic of Benin – that has recently repatriated 26 artifacts taken during French colonial rule. Part of the documentary is a fictionalized narration of the objects themselves, telling the story of their theft and return. The other half revolves around a debate with university students, in which they discuss the fact that 7,000 objects reside in the Paris museum, and they’ve only gotten this many back through years of diplomacy.

I saw Diop’s first film – Atlantics – back at the 29th Fest when I was in college; I think it closed my festival experience then too. Maybe I need to stop doing that, because much like that one, this just kind of washed over me. It’s not without its pleasures (the music, from Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt, for instance), and Diop does have talent. But I would’ve preferred the narration for every object, or at least a greater focus on their travel from France to Benin. As enlightening and lively as the university discussion is, it takes up quite a bit of a 67-minute movie. I could feel myself getting on the wavelength for it before it dissipated. Perhaps more exposure to this type of thing is needed.

And with that, the 33rd Philadelphia Film Festival has come to a close. By my count, I saw the most I’ve ever seen at one of these, at 38. Having an entire week off will do that to you. I can’t forget my badge situation as well though; not having to pay for Centerpiece tickets meant that I took a lot more chances on entires I would have otherwise ignored. This year still felt strange to me, in that the schedule somehow felt lighter than it had in years past. Not sure if that’s because there were more films here, longer runtimes, less from the vaults, however you wanna play it. Hard to remember how you felt or what you were doing 2 years ago, after all.

What I can confirm is what many of the programming staff said about this being the best one yet. By quality alone, I saw some truly stellar productions, most of my most anticipated films living up to the lofty festival hype. The biggest regret is that I had to miss The Seed of The Sacred Fig, and am now at the mercy of NEON to play it in Philly; I also had to miss Sister Midnight, the last entry in the Focus On India section, so I hope that gets a release somewhere. As I tabulated the list, I found a lack of surprise. Most everything I loved was something I’d heard of before or had put on my watchlist ages ago. There was no Red Rooms, no Tremors, or Rose Plays Julie, ie something that came from out of nowhere to completely knock my socks off. I don’t know if that was just a testament to the year or my own evolving critical tastes (or at least an attempt to hold back on crowning something just as I come out of the theater). All that said, making a top 10 was somewhat difficult. Many of these will be strong Best of The Year contenders, if not this year than the next. There are still quite a few I saw at the full list, which you can check out at Letterboxd. With the caveat that these could shift on later viewings, here’s The 10 Best Films of the 33rd Philadelphia Film Festival:

All We Imagine As Light
Still currently my favorite thing I’ve seen all year. Payal Kapadia’s rapturous feature debut is the kind of movie you just want to sink into, absorb every sensual texture and image. She turns the landscapes of Mumbai into something like a dream and in the process enhances the loneliness present everywhere. At the risk of cliche, it’s pure poetic cinema.
Opening 11/15 in NY and LA via Sideshow and Janus, expansion likely
Nickel Boys
Out of the story of two boys at a Florida Reform School, RaMell Ross crafts a stone cold stunner. More than anything, he crafts what it feels like to hold back memories, the associations one creates from disparate moments and references that bind themselves to your trauma. Evocative but not explicit, it’s a major accomplishment and a fine work of adaptation.
Opening 12/13 in limited release via MGM and Amazon
Flow
Easily the best animated movie of the year on sheer visual spectacle. But it’s a triumph of visual storytelling, utilizing the full scope of body language and tone to give animals character without making them human. Makes you wish you could show it to every Hollywood studio and force them to be better.
Opening 11/22 in limited release via Sideshow and Janus, 12/6 in wide release
Anora
The most borderline one, but the late act sells it for me. Whatever Sean Baker’s politics, there’s no denying he sees such a wide vein of empathy in his title character; all he’s ever wanted was for us to understand them, and he does through his typical mix of the profanely funny. Mikey Madison is going to change gay speech patterns for years to come. Just watch that trailer and try to say “a FRAUD marriage?!” any other way.
Out now in limited release, expect an expansion
No Other Land
“Important” is the among the lowest forms of praise you can give a movie, but if anything deserves it, it’s this. Shamefully, there’s still no legal way to see it in the US, more than likely because it refuses to act as though people can’t come to conclusions for the things they see in front of their eyes. To quote the man outside my screening: “The people that need to see this won’t.” Upsetting, harrowing, yet undoubtedly the work of filmmakers wishing for the world to see the beauty of their humanity.
No US distributor as of this writing.
Dead Talent’s Society
Sometimes, you just have a lot of fun with a movie. I’ll admit to being a little seal-like in my joy of seeing an extended Perfect Blue reference. It helps that the rest of the movie is committed to goofy, cartoony jokes and fairly clever in using scares as a metaphor for filmmaking. A little heart goes a long way.
Current international plans unknown. Expect it to come over next year, if not on streaming
The Brutalist
Adrian Brody, Guy Pierce, and Felicity Jones turn in fantastic performances but the true star is Brady Corbet. He effortlessly corales power, the fantasy of America, Jewish alienation, the Holocaust, and so much more into a surprisingly brisk, There Will Be Blood style epic on one man’s quest to stake his name. The fact that a movie that looks as good as this – from the sets to the costumes, down to the camera movements and compositions – for $10 million is an indictment to every actor and producer working in Hollywood today. Utterly overwhelming, and yet intensely compelling.
Opening 12/20 in limited release
Birdeater
Truth be told I’m a little nervous to revisit this, for fear the spell will be broken. I still don’t want to give too much away from this singularly demented creation, still the most insane thing I saw at this festival. Utilizing editing and framing almost as an attack, Jack Clark and Jim Weir plunge you deep into a singularly anxious mind and then constantly pull the rug out, veering from surreality to comedy back to relationship drama and horror. Maybe the substance isn’t quite there. I gotta hand it to them for making what feels like the most unstable movie I’ve ever seen (and I mean that entirely as a compliment).
US release unknown. Out in Australia
The Order
It might boil down to standard “cops and robbers” but what well-wrought cops and robbers these are. For whatever lack of depth (and copaganda, if you feel it) may be present on the cop side, the robbers – in this case, white supremacist terrorists – get an utterly chilling treatment that their charisma can’t hide. As much as we tell ourselves it’s done, the words of Quiz Kid Donnie Smith ring-out over the climax of The Turner Diaries: “we may be through with the past, but the PAST ain’t through with us”.
Opening 12/6 in limited release
Night Call
The more I’ve talked about it, the more I’ve come around to this taut thriller’s ending. Michiel Blanchart wrings every bit of tension he can from his setpieces, but notice the protagonist’s relationship with the BLM protestors. Uncommonly smart when it comes to its character’s actions, ultimately unsparing as the circle closes in around him. It might be the movie I’m most looking forward to revisiting, and I hope it captures more attention when it releases.
No date set, acquired by Magnet Releasing, should be limited within the next year

And also Maria is here

All We Imagine As Light. Credit: Janus/Sideshow

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light (Grade: A) is a frontrunner for my favorite film I’ve seen all year. Don’t know how to start this off other than just to put it plainly. There may have been no other film I’ve been anticipating all year, at least since the reviews and the Grand Prix award started coming in and it’s clear we’ve got a major talent on our hands. At turns luscious, dreamy, and poetic, Kapadia’s crafted a thing of true beauty, a grand claim for the female voice in Indian cinema.

Her previous film – 2021’s controversial documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing – featured fictional love letters read in voice over between film students interspersed with footage of protests against the Modi government, something which I’m told has gotten the film banned in a few states (and probably had something to do with why the selection committee passed it over at the Oscars, all man board notwithstanding). Here the voiceover returns and paired with the evocative nighttime shots of Mumbai, it’s transcendent – beginning first with a survey of Mumbai’s many languages describing the city, and then featuring everything from poetic dialog to text conversations.

The former centers around nurse straight-laced Prabha (Kani Kusruti). Her husband is away in Germany for work, unseen, represented by a foreign rice cooker she receives one day in the mail. In the thorough of loneliness she starts to fall into some sort of connection with a doctor at the hospital (Azees Nedumangad), though it’s clear to both that as much as they may want it, this is an impossible thing.

She lives with Anu (Divya Prahba), the source of the aforementioned text conversations. Those are for Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), a handsome man who – more crucially – is Muslim; the forbidden nature of their romance would seem to point more towards her parents but given Modi’s current Hindu nationalist leanings, it’s not hard to read that as a comment on the country at large.

Kapadia’s political leanings don’t stop there either. The scene most reminiscent of A Night of Knowing Nothing features Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), an older woman being threatened with eviction from her home of 22 years to make way for luxury condos, as she gathers with a group of activists. Her trip back home to her seaside village provides the ostensible plot, and it’s where the film ends in a particularly stunning shot. It can’t be overstated how beautifully shot the film is, awash in the life of the city, capturing its essence. Kusruti’s radiant performance provides the biggest emotional hook, but it’s the interplay with the actresses that provides the film with its beating heart. Here’s one that knows better than to lean into trite female celebration, instead drawing out the much deeper connections between them all, and from us.

The same can’t really be said about Maria (Grade: C), Pablo Larraín’s capper to an impromptu trilogy about the fraught lives of famous divas. In this case, the diva is Maria Callas, a woman I admittedly know next to nothing about besides the Opera and that one clip of that old queen saying he’s never heard a bad performance from her. Unfortunately you’re not going to learn much of anything about who she was or her life from this.

I rather enjoyed Jackie a lot, Spencer a little less but I still think fondly of it and Kristin Stewart’s performance. Despite also being scripted by Steven Knight, this one is rather inert, almost boring. As La Callas, Angelina Jolie captures what I assume the mannerisms of her are (and looks the part in footage shown in the credits). She never gets into a big screaming match or throws things across the room which I suppose is a small blessing for this kind of biopic. But something about the dialog just kept rubbing me the wrong way; extremely blunt and sounding performative, but with no real insight as to whether she really believes any of that or not. It’s straining to be clever in a way that the last two never reached, with so much emphasis on the distinction between Maria and La Callas but without anything in the sense of differentiation. Larraín introduces a newer stylistic track here from Jackie‘s TV special shooting and Spencer‘s haunted house perfume ad, in this case sequences of a drug-induced hallucination (?) of Kodi-Smit Mc-Phee interviewing Callas and getting precisely zero out of her. There’s lots of clips of Jolie singing and if that’s really her voice she must be commended. At worst, Maria resembles a more traditional biopic, something that could never be said about the others. It’s as if it relies too much on the audience knowing anything about Callas’ past and expecting that to carry through. A late scene featuring her sister shows the better movie hiding in there, but it’s just not enough.

“Too little” is not a word anyone would use to describe The Brutalist (Grade: A-) – all 215 minutes + intermission of it. Brady Corbet’s – erstwhile European arthouse actor turned cold, provocative director of The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux – film has been described as an attempt at the Great American Novel and there’s really no other way to describe it in its epic sweep. The brutalist of the title is one László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian architect fleeing the Holocaust to come to a little town called Doylestown in Pennsylvania (trust, that got a lot of reaction from the crowd).

Split into two acts covering roughly a couple decades, Corbet and co-writer Monica Fastvold have a lot on their mind: foreignness, Jewish people’s precarious place in society, the promise of America. Largely they mange to pull it off, and moving at quite a clip. By the time we hit the built in intermission I was certain we would be getting more chapters. Guy Pearce – as an industrialist who hires Tóth to construct a community center – injects a big dose of mid-century energy into the proceedings, pulling at threads of power and those who wield it over others. I’m not fully convinced the film has the necessary emotional power befitting of such an epic, and admittedly it does lag a bit in the interminable battle to get the center built. Still, the massive achievement of pacing itself cannot be denied, and I’m sure it will only rise in estimation once I get back around to it.

Finally, quick detour for some behind the scenes info: a big part of scheduling involves looking up US distributors, info that used to be on the program but for a few years now has not been there. If it’s from an A24, a Neon, a Mubi, etc. chances are that it will be coming to Philly, and so I feel much safer about skipping. This is part of how I found myself at the late night screening for Cloud (Grade: B+), a movie I likely would’ve seen eventually but frankly, did not want to take the chance that it would be coming a full year from now.

That aside: this is one of three or so Kiyoshi Kurosawa films in the pipeline this year (one of them, Chime, is on a Web3 platform or something) and Japan’s surprise choice for Best International. It follows Ryôsuke (Masaki Suda, the titular boy of The Boy and the Heron), a factory worker more concerned with his side hustle of reselling goods on the internet. What he’s not too concerned about is whether those goods are legitimate or whether the price he charges is fair. Naturally, this does not endear him to those he does business with, giving Kurosawa the chance to go back to the mode of Cure and Pulse that made him famous in the West. I don’t want to give away too much as to where it goes, other than to say it feels sort of like a Yakuza substory at times, perhaps one where Kiryu has to beat the shit out of someone scamming people. It may take a bit to get to the good parts, and the analysis of internet behavior may not be more than “anonymity (and money) breeds conflict”. But it’s a cracking thriller, uninterested in trying to garner sympathy for the lead but not too concerned with overly punishing him. If anything, it features a gunfight that suggests Kurosawa could make a pretty good action pivot.

Tomorrow: Mike Leigh reunites with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jesse and Kieran Go To Europe, and I try to make these things shorter for my own sake.

Tag: the brutalist

PFF33 Day Eleven: Baseball and Stolen Artifacts Close Out A Great Fest

Plus: the 10 Best Films seen.