(2024, Brady Corbet)

Initially, The Brutalist impresses with its differences: it has a very different beginning, a different titles sequence (the start and, particularly, the end-titles) and the way it tells its story is different, initially impressionistically. Its length is also impressive: 3hrs, 36mins, which at the screening I attended necessitated an intermission at the 100 min mark.

(2024, Kriv Stenders)

Australian director Kriv Stenders is well-known for directing the Australian crowd-pleasing film Red Dog (2011). But he has also directed some challenging and hard-edged films, and he’s fully up to the task of tackling this story “based on true events” as the opening credits describe it. In fact, the intelligent screenplay by Peter Duncan is based on the memoir by Peter Greste, who was also closely involved in the film’s production.

(2024, Mohammad Rasoulof)

At the very start of this film, we learn that the Sacred Fig is similar to what, in Australia, we call the “Strangler Fig.” That is, a fig tree whose seed, dropped by birds, flourishes in the crevices of other trees, and then grow to envelop their host tree, sometimes killing the host.

(2024, Tim Mielants)

With a Belgian director and a Dutch cinematographer filming the cold and drizzly outskirts of New Ross, in County Wexford, this film’s palette is subdued, the framing is painterly, like a Vermeer. The subject is serious and the mood is somber, but there is much to relish here.