Of brutal architecture...

The Brutalists (2024)

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/01/the-
brutalist-on-art-capitalism-and-the-immigrant-experience

Written, Directed: Brady Corbet

It serves as Hollywood's occasional reminder of the plight of Jews in Europe during World War II. Cast with Adrien Brody, who has a personal connection to the Holocaust, what does he get? Ten Oscar nominations and multiple accolades, including a second Best Actor Academy Award for Brody. 

If the plot evokes Brody's character in 'The Pianist' (2002), don't fret. He is also an Eastern European Jewish refugee here and a remarkably gifted individual displaced by the malevolence that humanity inflicts in the name of nationalism, race, and religion. 

A Hungarian Jew, László Tóth, an architect who designed significant buildings in Budapest, finds himself penniless and homeless in the United States. He reaches out to his friend and assists in his furniture business. Tóth becomes acquainted with a wealthy man when the friend is commissioned to build a personal library on the estate. 

J Edgar Hoover building

In summary, Tóth impresses the wealthy man enough to be entrusted with the honour of designing and constructing a massive community hall in the city. 

The remainder of the 3.5-hour story chronicles the ups and downs of their relationship, his troubled friendship with his former boss, how his wife is brought to America, the challenges Tóth faces in bringing his design to life, and ultimately witnessing his creation come to fruition, only to be celebrated some 50 years later. It is all rather predictable. The acting and cinematography are exemplary, nonetheless, deserving of their Oscar wins.

Ryugyong Hotel

The lesson I learnt from watching this movie is that the word 'brutalist' has another meaning. Brutalist architecture is an imposing building style, often characterised by unappealing construction, which became popular after the Second World War in major European and American cities. It is also characteristic of many Eastern Bloc countries, which were predominantly communist. It features raw, monochromatic concrete blocks, creating a linear, geometric appearance both outside and inside. This style is typically used for public institutions, such as courts, universities, libraries, and public works. 

The Brutalists employed linear, monolithic blocks in contrast to older architectural styles, which featured domes, curves, and sculptures. The free world regarded them as imposing and emphasised their grandiosity. The communists believed that their unimaginative design was anti-bourgeois, exactly what they aimed to present to the world. The liberal use of concrete, along with playful variations, somehow signified equality. 

Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh.

Over the years, people have frequently lamented their ugliness. Although these brutalist buildings were initially considered low-maintenance, this proved to be a misconception. The buildings became visually unappealing once moss began to grow. They attempted to circumvent this issue by integrating greenery into the structures. Rust stains around the steel reinforcing bars were also problematic. Three notorious brutalist buildings around the world have at one time or another been voted the ugliest. These are the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, and the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh. Many are being rapidly demolished, but the aforementioned three have so far staved off the wrecking ball.

https://www.buildworld.co.uk/blog/archives/the-ugliest-buildings-in-the-world

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Extraordinarily Simple!

Marty (1955)

Director: Dilbert Mann

https://boredanddangerousblog.wordpress.com/
2016/05/24/movie-review-marty-1955/

Ernest Borgnine was a regular fixture during my terrestrial TV days growing up. He often played the villain in numerous Western films and portrayed a tough soldier in combat movies. The last I recall watching him, he was a smiling, gap-toothed, confident character in ‘Airwolf’.

The 1950s saw Borgnine thrive in Hollywood; however, his opportunities to appear as a leading man sadly diminished as he began to gain weight in the middle and lose it at the top. Then came the audition for ‘Marty’, and he was cast as the hero. 

The 1950s also witnessed movie moguls amassing fortunes from their productions. Simultaneously, tax authorities were hot on their trail, occasionally imposing charges on megastars of up to 94% if they earned more than $ 200,000. Consequently, many looked for loopholes to avoid taxes. Some worked less, while others established shell companies for dubious ventures. 

Burt Lancaster, a self-made man, had precisely that on his mind when he ventured alongside his agent, Harold Hect, to adapt a TV play into a feature film. No one was optimistic that such a monochrome endeavour with a mundane story about an elderly man searching for a wife would make an impact at the box office. This was during a period when studios were thriving with their extravagant films featuring biblical narratives, lavish sets, and vibrant, colourful scenes. 

Lancaster and Hect wanted the film to fail. They did not want it completed; rather, they sought to write it off as a loss.

 

However, the tax authorities were shrewder. They ruled that films must be finished and screened at least once to be considered a failure. Consequently, the producers had no option but to show it in a single cinema in New York with very little publicity. 

The film, largely shot outdoors around New York, attracted the local populace to the cinema. Before long, people were queuing down the block for tickets. Someone decided to send it to Cannes as America’s representative. Hollywood had never won anything at Cannes prior to that. Lo and behold, Marty won the 1955 Palme d’Or, and the rest is history. At the Oscars, it went on to win four Academy Awards, including one for Ernest Borgnine. 

 

Marty became extraordinary due to its simplicity. The storyline resonated with the times when turning 29 made a woman an old maid, a 35-year-old man old, and family values were a high priority. The conversations were mundane and self-deprecating, intensifying the emotional depth of the characters and drawing us closer to their daily lives than in the mid-1950s.

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How to normalise free sex?

Anora (2024)
Director: Sean Baker

https://thefutureoftheforce.com/2024/10/31/review-anora-2024/

I was nearly knocked off my socks when I heard that 'Anora' won five Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Actress, and Best Director. However, receiving the Best Film award is beyond any rational justification.  

My first impression of it when I viewed it was that it seemed like rubbish. It reminded me of the numerous B-grade films that excited teenagers in the 1980s when they gathered around their friends' VHS players to watch Koo Stark in 'Emily'.

The plot is thin and predictable, and the storytelling fails to present anything new. The storyline has been told and retold in numerous other films, though it serves more as a subplot. For context, this narrative follows a pole dancer who also works as a prostitute and finds herself infatuated with the debauched son of a Russian oligarch. According to her, the correct job title is exotic dancer. They dive into a whirlwind of romance filled with plenty of sex, drink, and other intoxicants. The allure of a grand mansion, a yacht lifestyle, and casino living proves too tempting. So, what is the next logical step? Get married in Vegas, of course, where the chapel can wed anyone 24/7.

This astonished his bodyguard, who was unaware of what was unfolding despite being in charge of his safety. His guardian was notified, and the oligarch parents arrived, eager to resolve the commotion. Next came the amusing part, as they dashed about attempting to annul the wedding. 

The film prides itself on not depicting Russians as mere mobs but rather imbuing them with personalities and emotions, particularly the henchmen, who are not shown as bumbling Russian nincompoops (albeit slightly).

I believe the entire premise of the film is to normalise prostitution as a profession. It is entirely acceptable to be high three-quarters of the time. One can still function normally after perpetually drowning oneself in casual sex, cocaine, and alcohol. Sex workers are portrayed as having their own agency, leaving their 'professions' whenever they choose. Perhaps they neglect to mention the pimps and human trafficking associated with the sex trade. Or is it women empowerment to choose to be a sex worker?

It is an award not for acting, but for how much drapery one can shed and how convincingly one can simulate coital activity. Nothing more, nothing less!

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Serenity exemplified in Auschwitz!

The Zone of Interest (2023)
Director: Jonathan Glazer

Even though this is about something that happened more than 80 years ago, put in a similar situation, I foresee we humans do the exact thing that we did during World War 2 Nazi rule of Germany. We justify our actions and inaction through the dog-whistle call of the majority without taking a step back and asking ourselves, "Am I doing the right thing?"

Even during peacetime in Malaysia, a section of people is trying to steamroll their agenda to the rest of the country. Any sane person of reasonable intellectual capacity would understand this is not how democracy works. The majority chooses, and the rest would follow suit. Changes are made via constructive discourses at the appropriate forums. This renegade group is trying to change all these. The might of high decibels in the confines of an echo chamber cannot be underestimated.

Like Grobbels, who thought that the propaganda machines of the State could steer the thinking of the majority, small-minded fascists in this country are using mob power backed by their own interpretation of the scriptures to gain political power and to cow the minority into submission.

The thinking majority should be aware of this and not just that. They should also have the gumption to call the bluff. Otherwise, the outcome will be what we see in this movie—the country's machinery used to carry out a dastardly activity for future generations to curse us.

This movie won many accolades for its gruesome (not in graphic representation with gore, violence and blood) depiction of events that may have happened at Auschwitz concentration camp. All the violence, killings and death are only depicted in sounds and indirect visuals.

Serene living beside a concentration camp
in Auschwitz.

It tells the story of the Commandant of Auschwitz and his family as they live in a lovely double-storey bungalow immediately beside the camp. Amidst the background hum of the incinerator, screams of prisoners as they are led to their death and the occasional gunshots, the family leads a happy life. Oblivious to the happenings at the camp, the family grow attached to the bungalow, beautifying it and even refuses to move when the Commandant is transferred elsewhere. The air is filled with bellowing smoke of burning flesh. The river occasionally has fragments of bones discarded after incineration. The compound is strewn with ashes. Still, life goes on happily.

The irony is that the family lives without a care in the world. They conveniently overlook the carnage that happens behind the camp walls. They even have grand plans for the future.

This must be the true meaning of the word banality of evil that Hannah Arendt popularised after the 1948 Adolf Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem. People perform the cruellest of evils, not because they are sociopaths or inherently evil. They do it because the system expects them to behave in a particular way. For them, it is business as usual. It becomes the list of duties that must be completed to qualify for remunerations and promotions.

The mind shuts down. Mindfulness is lost. The higher thinking centres get bypassed. Everyone goes into zombie mode under the hypnosis of the supreme leader. 

(P.S. The director's acceptance speech at the Oscars ceremony has started a storm and could possibly be outcasted by Hollywood. His speech essentially can be interpreted as all that seen in the film was the effect of dehumanisation. His mention of the October 7th incident begs further clarification. Are the Jews, after surviving their aggressors, repeating the dehumanisation policy to the Gaza people? There is no easy answer. Remember, the state of Israel is located amongst neighbours who yearn for its annihilation. Can one practice no violence at the end of the barrel of a gun? 'We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,' he said.)

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A legacy to leave behind?

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Writer & Director: Martin McDonagh

Different people would interpret this movie differently. As all movies based in Ireland tend to be based on the Irish Rebellion, naturally, it could be construed as a veiled depiction of the clash between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. It could be an allegorical reference to a futile feud between brothers which had lost all relevance and had no meaning in modern Ireland. The police, representing England, could be the ruling coalition and may benefit from continued chaos.

Someone proposed that the storyteller is trying to imply that hope had died in the region, and another character is pushing for the other to get out of the place to start a new life.

To put the plot straight, the story happens on an island, Inisherin, during the tail-end of the Irish Civil War, around the 1920s, just across the straits on the mainland. Nothing much is happening on the island. The protagonist, Pádraic, milks his cow and spends much time at the local pub. One day, his usual drinking buddy, Colm, says he does not want anything to do with him anymore. The movie's whole point is to guess why Colm's sudden change of heart. To make it more dramatic, Colm, a violinist, threatens that if Padraic does not stay away, he will amputate his fingers one by one with each meeting. 

Pádriac is actually not the sharpest tool in the shed. On the other hand, Colm plays the violin, tries to compose new tunes, and teaches youngsters his skill. He is a great sport at the local pub. Meanwhile, Pádriac's sister, who is reasonably well-read, cooks and cares for him, calls it quits. She leaves the island.

I think the film's cryptic message is the existential crisis question. We start adulthood thinking that the world is an oyster for us to scoop. With the 'never say die' attitude, we can mould a utopia of peace and understanding. When reality sinks in and mortality almost stares into our faces, we start reassessing our achievements. We wonder what our legacy is going to be. We wish we had things differently if we were to do things all over again. This knowledge, a life lesson, is what we want to leave for the young to learn. Sometimes life lessons need to be drilled in a not so pleasant. Mollycoddling does not always work. Sometimes it is kind to be unkind. 

A third person would label all these as depression, a reaction to chronic exposure to uncertainty.

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A full circle?

Women Talking (2022)

(Based on a novel by Miriam Toews)
Director: Sarah Polley

"What's new?" said DA. "Women can talk; they sure do." He started talking about the male and female brain and how their connexions differ and such... One is action-orientated, whilst the other talks!" But that is not the point. It is about women's empowerment and talking back against a system that subjugated them to stereotypical roles. Every civilisation and religious path must have started with novel intentions of giving everyone a place in the sun and a right to pursue certain rights in life. Along the way, the leaders found it easier to rule by decree, and certain obscure divine ordains showed their presence.

Even though they are built tough and resilient on the inside, women lost out on many physical day-to-day duties and worked in tandem with their male counterparts to complete their tasks. Manual labour in the good old days was intensive. Mechanisation and industrialisation of the Sufferage era made work less labour-intensive. And finally, the sexual revolution of the 60s, for once, gave women, for the first time in aeons, a chance to control their fertility. All these while, parturition and child-rearing were their most significant hurdle in reaching greater heights. Maternal hormones and societal expectations prevented them from pursuing their worldly desires. 

With equal education and job opportunities, the past fifty years saw the fairer sex coming to par with their male counterparts. Their journey was no walk in the park. Their presence in education, economy and politics is beyond compare. Now, there is a re-look into their combative stance to be at par with men. Some have started asking questions. 

With all advances in contraceptive methods, failure is a real thing. Unfortunately, the by-product of all the sexual merriment is borne by the female gender. The maternal hormones circulating in their veins draw affection to the newborn or the soon-to-be-born. It is just simply impossible to detach oneself from this. A mother cannot just stand idle at the sound of a wailing baby. Neither can she prioritise her sleep over nursing her offspring at o'clock in the morning. Anyway, all the deferment of fertility to concentrate on career prospects in endangering childbirth at a mature age. With age, with wisdom, choosing a life partner becomes much more problematic. Single parenthood has its own problem. 

Again, some ask whether the biological differences in sex are for deservedly different reasons. Both perform various duties towards a unified front. One need not compete but rather complement the journey of life.

This film is based on a novel by Miriam Toews referring to what happened in a Mennonite colony named Manitoba Colony in Bolivia between 2005 and 2009. The Mennonites arose from the Anabaptist movement that emerged from the Reformation era. The Anabaptists believe baptism should be voluntary at a mature age, not infancy. 

The colony's 151 women and young girls were mass-sedated with cow tranquilisers and were sexually assaulted. More than seven were charged with rape, and so was the veterinarian who supplied the drug. The novel is a fictional account of what the affected women would have discussed before taking their next course of action.

This type of discussion going back and forth is what our forefathers must have had before leaving their lands and family in India, China or elsewhere. Even longer before that, when our first ancestor took his first step out of Africa. Quite recently, my daughter had to decide this before moving lock, stock and barrel to uproot from Malaysia and work under the NHS as a skilled immigrant labourer. They all must have considered the three choices - do nothing but forgive, forget and hope for the best, stay and fight, or leave.

With depleting national coffers while keeping the vote banks happy with race politics, civil service has taken a drastic deep in quality, efficacy and integrity.

[P.S. On another note... In the story, the ladies noticed that on the nights someone kept vigil, the said molestations did not occur. Gruesome assaults happened when everybody slept soundly. This reminded me of the double-slid experiments in quantum mechanics - results obtained with and without an observer, suggesting that everything is unreal.]

[P.S.S. Realising that humans need to live in a community and be herded to the correct path, which religion seems to offer, individuals prey on gullible victims to fulfil their desires.]

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Treating animals better than people?

All that Breathes (Documentary; 2022)

Director: Shaunak Sen

In a man-eat-man world, two brothers find their purpose in life, rescuing injured birds. Against a background of opposing groups fighting against the abrogation of article 370, of brothers of the same nation, hurting each other, we see two brothers going all out to rescue various birds and nursing them back to health, all voluntarily on their own accord with no training whatsoever. Within the confines of a dinghy house which they have converted into a bird clinic in Wazirabad in South Delhi, they have been rehabilitating small animals since the 1990s. 

The brothers, Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud, even had referrals from other veterinarian clinics to treat these feathered animals. One of the reasons these raptors were sent away is that these clinics could not feed them non-vegetarian meals. 

The brothers' efforts, even though they received minimal local financial support, garnered international recognition and the attention of a documentary maker and his team to immortalise their efforts.

What started as their late mother's teaching to be kind to fellow beings and all that breathe had snowballed to this. In an environment that is quite hostile, with all the Delhi pollution, their job is endless.

This documentary is a moving presentation with many artistically captured moments when and where fellow beings breathe the same airspace. Many reels show the many 'wild' animals that share our spaces in modern cities. A good documentary, India's nomination to the Oscars.

A cynic wonders whether the filmmakers are trying to portray India as a place so vile that even animals find it smothering to live. Not to forget the toxic environment that minorities have to put up with. And are we talking about pollution or societal pressures? And, of course, another group would lament that people's priorities are twisted - animals taking precedence over humans.  

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Only you can save yourself!

The Whale (2022)
Director: Darren Aronofsky

We all carry on our lives, deluding ourselves that we can save others. We are convinced we can cajole the divine forces into changing the universe's trajectory to accommodate our easy passage. We think we can indeed influence others to engineer their own future path. We naively believe our hard work certainly will make them fight their inner demons and move towards the right direction. As if we, ourselves, are so cocksure of the right road to happiness as if we have traversed them before. And our current journey is akin to a trip 'Back to the Future'!

Using the allegory of the 1851 classic 'Moby Dick' by Hermann Melville or alternatively titled 'The Whale' in which the main character, Captain Abad, is fixated on hunting down an albino whale, the story tells us how we fill up our lives with so many unnecessary things that bring most minor benefits. The whaling ship's Captain is hellbent on avenging a whale that crippled him, forgetting his real purpose of going to sea, for whaling and making a profit.

The author of the book went on tangential writing about all the various places, people and species of animals that the Captain failed to appreciate, blinded by his emotion. Are these the real reason for our existence? To learn and enjoy all the beauty and experiences around us that completes us?

This highly emotionally charged movie tells the story of a morbidly Charlie who left his alcoholic wife and his 8-year-old daughter to start life anew with his newfound sexuality and a student boyfriend. The boyfriend is a preacher's son whose father vehemently opposed the unholy union. Unable to handle the pressures from his preacher and the retribution of the wrath of God as depicted in the Bible, he becomes depressed, anorexic and finally takes his own life. Charlie, on the other hand, indulged in binge eating after the loss. He becomes a recluse and becoming a morbidly obese individual. Charlie is seriously ill with congestive cardiac failure at the verandah of death but refuses any treatment. He wants to save his money to pass it to his daughter.

The mainstay of the story involves his ex-wife, who pays a visit to discuss their uncontrollable daughter, who is not doing well in school and Charlie trying to reconcile with his daughter. The other two characters are his boyfriend's sister, a nurse, who is the only person he is in touch with daily and a part-time evangelist who tries to convert him.  

The clear take-home message is that nobody can save another person in trouble. Getting out of trouble is the onus of the affected party alone. He has to realise his predicament, get his posterior out of his chair and wriggle himself out of his mess. There is no shortcut. People react differently to the same stress (like anorexia and binge eating, as in this film). No one solution fits all.

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