The Brutalist

The Brutalist feels like a memory of a movie. It is both very dream-like and very real at the same time. Three and a half hours long and I didn’t even blink an eye. As a photography enthusiast myself, almost every shot felt like a perfect composition. The most memorable imagery however was silhouettes of men among gigantic concrete structures. This dichotomy of organic versus inorganic, perfect versus flawed, imagined versus real was central the movie. That in of itself speaks so much about the immigrant experience. An imagined land where all the troubles will seize to exist versus the reality of country that’s cold, hard and unwanting.

Despite all it’s merit I must say that the movie actively acts as a propaganda piece for Aliyah. Whether that was intended or not is for the journalist to decide but it uses very strong imagery and story telling to emphasize this idea of “You don’t belong here” to the Jewish part of the audience. One must ask himself, is it really impossible to survive as a Jew in the West without turning into an assimilated clown? Is destination really more important than the journey? Doesn’t butchering and displacing hundreds of thousands to claim a land make you the monster you intend to be fighting against?