When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern United States, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious, wealthy client.
Call me a bad movie snob. Go on, do it.
I did not care for this movie.
Now, don’t get me wrong… the storytelling was decent. I had already gone into the film with a healthy appreciation for brutalist architecture and was excited to spend time in that world. The acting was phenomenal, particularly Guy Pearce, who should be walking away with all the awards for this movie.
Adrien Brody, in my opinion, should not.
This is one of those movies that is good… and then it’s not. Like, there were times when this was lovely to look at – the shots of the library, in particular, were gorgeous. I’m sure if I’d seen this in a theater, it would have brought tears to my eyes.
Then there were times when the camera lingered too long, or a speech rambled on with no purpose for too long. It was those moments that the movie angered me. I’ve read that this was intentional to represent brutalist architecture – lone lines without any breaks broken up by choppy angles = long shots without breaks broken up by choppy edits.
I can see it, but it didn’t translate to the screen for me.
No moments angered me more than the ones where action was happening on the screen that moved the story forward, while a letter that was only tangentially-related was read in voice-over. This has worked for my brain in other movies, where I can concentrate on both lines of input equally.
My brain refused to do it with this movie, though. I don’t know why, and I don’t think I’ll watch it again to figure it out.
Let’s talk about some things I loved about this film:
The title cards. They were unique, fresh, and fun to look at. Innovation! We love to see it.
Guy Pearce: Talk about scenery chewing! It took me about 30 minutes to even recognize him! In every single scene he was in, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He portrayed a massive range of emotions, some of which I don’t think were necessary to the story.
Now, the story is where I have a real issue. Cause this movie feels like Oscar bait 101:
- A holocaust survivor
- The immigrant story
- A family that lets you down
- A drug problem
- Rich folks
- Stunning original architecture (more on this later)
- A secret homosexual
- Stunning vistas
- A disabled person
- A rape
- An impeccable accent (more on this later)
- A miraculous (unexplained) recovery
- A long run time
As the movie continued, it felt more and more like intentional Oscar bait to me. The more I think about it, the more it feels like this.
I felt bad for not loving it, like, as a movie lover, I was supposed to. Then I found out this “little movie that could” had a little help from our Artificial Intelligence buddies, and that leaves a BAD taste in my mouth, y’all.
Here are the instances that rile me up the most:
”Much of the film’s dialogue is in Hungarian, the filmmakers went to great lengths to make it as accurate to a native speaker as possible. This included judicious use of AI from the Ukrainian specialist Respeecher.”
In my opinion, this should make the actors ineligible for awards. I understand that they used this tool to help get the pronunciation correct because if they wanted authenticity, they hired actors who could actually speak the language! It’s that simple to me. AI-enhanced performances aren’t acting.
This makes it feel like the stage is the only place to find genuine authenticity nowadays.
And who can afford that? Not me.
Later on in the same article, the editor of the film says:
“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we’d still be in post”
I know this movie was made for an impressively small budget in relation to the scale of the film, but hey – that above quote is one of the reasons why.
If they had chosen to take time with the process and employed some humans to do that WORK, then, yeah, you’d still be in post production.
Taking work away from people who want to work is one of the reasons why I hate AI. Lack of authenticity is another.
This movie brags about being the first film to be shot in Vista Vision since 1961.
And then do you know what this film does? A film that is about architecture? That was mostly shot in Hungary? Where a lot of Brustalist architecture already exists?
Welp
”GenAI is also used right at the end of the film in a sequence at the Venice Biennale to conjure a series of architectural drawings and finished buildings in the style of the fictional architect.”
THEY COULDN’T EVEN HIRE AN ARTIST FOR THESE. OR TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE BOUNTY OF BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE THAT SURROUNDED THEM.
Then, at the end of the interview, the editor says this line:
”This is a story of a struggling artist.”
Way to keep our current artists struggling, filmmakers.
I am SURE an artist could have been hired for these pieces. Why didn’t you hire them?
I didn’t like the movie upon initial viewing, and as this AI stuff comes out, I like it less and less.
Oh, and I HATED the score. I felt what they were trying to do, but that’s just it – I felt what they were TRYING to do… which was the same for the entire movie.
I like a movie that just does it.
With humans. Not artificial intelligence.
