Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Filmmaker Brady Corbet seeks to conjure movies of a bygone era in more ways than one with his latest, The Brutalist. Perhaps most notably, he and director of photography Lol Crawley resurrected the defunct large‑format VistaVision process, supplanted years ago by IMAX. There’s also the running time—well over three hours, including both a brief overture and an intermission. Thankfully, it all comes together, painting a rich portrait of László Toth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian immigrant who develops a complicated relationship with wealthy industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce). László is a brutalist architect, his work defined by exposed concrete, glass, and steel, and Van Buren commissions him to create a dream project that inevitably becomes a nightmare for them both over the ensuing years.

In addition to Brody, the movie won Oscars for its musical score and cinematography, and the 4K disc is a visual triumph. The 1.66:1 VistaVision image (scanned at 6K) delivers sumptuous textures with copious amounts of pleasing natural grain, plus a surprising recurrence of negative dirt and other “flaws,” likely maintained to achieve more of that desired nostalgia. The scenarios often involve numerous modest close‑ups and dimly lit interiors/exteriors, all exquisitely resolved, but some later, larger scenes in an Italian quarry are truly breathtaking. As we would hope for a movie of this length, A24 is using a 100 GB triple‑layer disc for The Brutalist to enable a healthy bitrate; however, it does not support high dynamic range. While I was tempted to ding the rating as a protest against the perplexing lack of HDR, the final product is so lovely I can’t.

Alongside a slew of vintage tunes from across the decades, composer Daniel Blumberg’s score floats in and out of the narrative, sometimes driving the story forward and at other moments only gently enhancing the intoxicating mood, the notes folded quietly into the 5.1 mix so as not to intrude upon a given scene.

Lol Crawley goes it alone on his full‑length audio commentary and, as we might imagine, brings us much more than a passing peek into the art and craft of cinematography. The only other on‑disc extra is a brisk 24‑minute making‑of with multiple cast and crew interviews, but the classy A24 package houses a companion set of six art cards on heavy stock. This assortment of architectural sketches is a refreshing switch from the photos or miniature movie posters we’re typically given in collector’s editions, handsomely rounding out this deluxe presentation.

Chris Chiarella