The Brutalist 4K UHD

Big, bold character study of a brilliant, uncompromising architect, his immigration to postwar United States, and his struggles and triumphs, only to find the disillusion of the American dream. The Brutalist is a dark, sophisticated, cinematic journey that explores artistic vision, integrity, identity, art for arts sake, played against themes of control, power, capitalism, and trauma. The excellent use of atmosphere showcases the jazz clubs, palatial estates, and Americana of urban architecture, as well as the excess of drugs, alcohol, and self-aggrandizing tycoons. The film is an all around great production, with an Oscar winning performance by Adrian Brody, and stunningly filmed in VistaVision. These qualities are a grand throwback to classic widescreen Hollywood epics, like Giant, America America, and The Agony and The Ecstasy, with the literary feel of The Fountainhead. While the movie is long and at times quite unpleasant, it is a rewarding, and impressive cinematic experience, as I really admired the level of ambition, even though it took me a few days to truly appreciate its themes. Those that enjoyed There Will Be Blood, The Pianist, Oppenheimer, The Irishman, The Aviator, and maybe even The Wolf Of Wall Street, are the real target audience for this film. This fine A24 release contains an audio commentary, a short documentary, and a set of art cards. Highly recommended.

A very GREAT movie. But this is a rough movie to watch also. I have watched it 2 times in 2 weeks.

I thought this was a movie about S&M. Well I guess you can use your imagination with the architecture.

This film has garnered many accolades, including best actor and best cinematography Academy awards. I was absorbed by the story, and overall, the performances were commendable. However, I take issue with the claim that VistaVision was essential to tell the story properly. While it is true that the larger format offered by this technology can assist in providing increased image detail, as well as the ability to encompass a wider field of view of architectural or scenic elements without distortion from a wide angle lens, the number of scenes benefitting from these features was minimal. In fact, the claimed distortion found with wide angle lenses could have been minimized by careful camera placement. Alternatively, since this film used AI to provide authentic Hungarian accents, similar computer technology could have been applied to the digital intermediate (DI) to correct any such image issues. Special distortion correcting lenses also exist which could have been employed to address this problem. I was disappointed overall with the image quality of this VistaVision production, compared to the razor sharp images seen in the recent VistaVision restorations of “North by Northwest” and “Vertigo,” for example, as well as “The Searchers.” Scenes with darker illumination often lacked absolute black when needed, thus causing a lower contrast, grey cast to the image. This problem seems more pervasive these days, perhaps representing a change in aesthetic preference by modern cinematographers, or worse, by those technicians called “colorists” who manipulate the color palette and brightness/contrast levels, supposedly to “create a mood.”These may be minor quibbles on my part, but I only mention them because the VistaVision process is heavily promoted for this film, and in my opinion, it is far from the best example of what could be achieved with the process. The films I cited above provide a far more spectacular endorsement of VistaVision’s capabilities.

la pelicula cuenta con una excelente imagen, sin embargo hay una serie de punto importantes a tener en cuenta para las personas que quieran adquirir esta pelicula- La pelicula cuenta con subtitulos en español, sin embargo el audio es solo en ingles- Los extras como el audio comentario o detras de camaras no cuenta con subtitulos en español- Esta edicion es una especie de digibook con una cubierta protectora de carton, dentro vienen una serie de postales con imagenes de algunos edificios de arquitectura brutalista- Al ser de carton es posible que las puntas del digibook se arrugen con el envio (es bueno tenerlo presente)Personalmente siendo alguien que vive en latinoamerica me alegra ver que A24 tiene en cuenta los subtitulos al español en algunas peliculas recientes lo cual hace posible que puedan ser adquiridas.

I'm watching the MAKING OF features and it is amazing how fast the production team made this 3 hour + film in both New York and Budapest. I realize the characters are fictional but the Cast brings so much gravitas and vigor to their roles that you feel like you're watching the history of actual people who designed in this style of architecture. You might even want to watch the MAKING OF features first so you realize the immense efforts that went into this movie before actually watching the movie itself.