i think the whole van buren construction project is a metaphor for toth losing his jewish identity and rebuilding his identity as an assimilated US goy. he's building some huge church where the centerpiece is a giant shiny cross in the middle. his wife writes a letter saying that toth is so obsessed with the construction project that he's stopped going to shul. he's not just working on some random project -- he's literally building a masterpiece church.

and there's the dramatic scene with toth in shul on yom kippur with the congregation chanting the powerful melody of the vidui (confession of the sins) and toth banging on his chest, juxtaposed with scenes of the construction. this is to obviously show the struggle that toth is facing as he loses his jewish identity and his faith in hashem by assimilating in the US and engaging in idol worship, and how he feels guilty about it.

relatedly, there's the scene where the niece and her new husband announce that they're going to make aliyah in israel and try to get toth and wife to come with them. toth reacts very negatively to the prospect of jews in israel, doesn't care about his jewish identity, and cares more about his work in the US. this scene shows how jewish assimilation is tempting yet toxic.

there's also the bit about toth's cousin marries a shikse and has anglicized his name, and the shikse tells a huge lie that toth made a move on her, and the cousin sides with his shikse wife and kicks toth out. an assimilated jew is destroying his own flesh and blood, with the help of goyim trying to break up the tribe.

relatedly, van buren's fat jew lawyer marries a shikse, and converts to catholicism. the lawyer demonstrates jewish guilt with his assimilation by trying to help toth get his family to come to the US

all this stuff, to me, adds up to a movie about the horrors of assimilation. i could be totally hallucinating, particularly this director is a goy (with some distant jewish roots according to "early life" on wiki), but maybe i'm totally on to something.

if this movie isn't about assimilation, i have no idea what else it is about.

overall, this movie was beyond bizarre. i really don't get the point. it seems like one of those faggy artsy movies with no purpose other than for the director to jerk himself off about how artsy he is in the hopes that other insiders also jerk him off for being artsy.

the acting was phenomenal. brody certainly delivered an amazing performance, and his oscar is well deserved.

the movie is very long, but it's naturally broken up into two acts of 1:40 each and watching two separate 1:40 movies is way better than watching some almost 3 hr film all in one shot.

the second act was very bizarre. the first act had a lot of plot development, and the second act left a lot of stuff totally mysterious which was really annoying. it wasn't clear how van buren became a fag, or what happened to him, or how the wife died.

it is also very bizarre that the movie made no mention of toth being a holocaust survivor until the epilogue. throughout the movie, it wasn't clear if he was a refuge / escapee or actually had been in camps, and it's weird they buried that until the end for no reason.

this is the second "oscar bait" film i've seen this season (after anora), and i have to say that anora was actually a better film.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5689878&forum_id=2#48720885)

A lot of the movie comes down to the line from Van Buren's son about how Toth is tolerated, not liked, and to that point I think the whole thing with VanBuren in Italy was more about power and subordination than sexuality. Toth could be more talented and capable than anyone, he could cross oceans and make his way from sleeping in shelters and shoveling coal to high society but ultimately, he's gonna end up on the bottom. I think they tried to make a similar point by including Toth's black contractor friend in so much of the movie and sort of showing their parallel experience. It was a great movie and worth another watch, but I don't know when I'll have another 4 hours to commit to it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5689878&forum_id=2#48721231)

this would further support my point that this film is about jewish assimilation. US goyim have never liked jews and never allowed them to be part of their elite wasp society. jews were the bankers and lawyers for the blue bloods, and jews were used for their intellectual horsepower. but jews are never truly going to be fully respected.

i see your point about the rape being about power/subordination. but was van buren not a fag then? just bros helping brows?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5689878&forum_id=2#48721363)

you think it is obvious he killed himself in shame? that's the most likely reading and what i would assume, but it's lame they didn't close that out.

why didn't they close out the chapter about the wife about her illness and how she died and if she ever got better?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5689878&forum_id=2#48721443)