A 3,5 hour-long film about a Holocaust-surviving architect may not sound like the best way to spend your Saturday evening. Yet The Brutalist captured my imagination in a big way and, almost a week after I saw it, still haunts my memories.

The film is certainly no popcorn material, not just due to its duration, but also because of its story. The story of László, a Hungarian-born architect who emigrates to the US after surviving a concentration camp, gets under your skin, not in the least due to Adrien Brody’s strong performance. Especially at the point in history at which we currently find ourselves, any story about migration and the Holocaust feels uncannily timely, but The Brutalist‘s unflinching depiction of violence, trauma and anti-semitism hits the message home even more.

Yet the film’s subplots were what truly make me think, even more so than the overarching narrative. László’s complicated relationship with his initially estranged wife and his American mecenas. The tension between the need to adapt to American culture to be build something resembling a new life and the desire to maintain your own cultural identity. The constant reminders that, as a migrant, you are “other” and that any approval gained may well be conditional. As a migrant whose ancestors hailed from the same part of Europe as László, these aspects of the film made me very uncomfortable. As, perhaps, they should. Few things, the film shows, are more dangerous than complacency.

One of my favourite scenes occurs when László’s wife Erzsébet is questioned by a group of wealthy Americans shortly after her arrival in the US. One of them compliments her on her good English, to which she drily responds that she studied in the UK, at Oxford University. When the visibly baffled man asks her what she studied, she tells him that she studied English literature and worked as a foreign affairs correspondent before the war. I’m no stranger to being underestimated in similar ways and Erzsébet’s joy in putting her condescending audience to right made me nod in grinning approval.

Although The Brutalist is a strong Oscar-contender, this film is not for everyone. If you are a casual cinema-goer who watches films primarily as entertainment (and there’s nothing wrong with that) you will struggle. It may be too slow, too long, too dark for your liking. I for me am glad that difficult films are still getting made and are finding an audience. The Brutalist may well be one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and seeing as I’m writing this at the end of January, I’m excited about what’s still to come.

Photo by Nick Gorniok via Pexels