First, three and a half hours for a movie? No. I nibbled through the first half all week in twenty-minute-long chunks, then I watched the second half today.
Second, I foolishly thought this movie was about a real person: specifically Riccardo Morandi, a Brutalist architect who encased bridge cables in cement, and no one saw the cables had rusted until suddenly the bridge collapsed. So, in the cement discussion scene I thought, “Oooh, foreshadowing,” but no, it’s just pointless talk about cement.
Third, one reason I thought it was based on a real person was the character’s name: Laslo Toth. “What a coincidence,” I thought, “that must be a really common name in Europe.” First, the guy who smashed up the Pieta, and the Don Novello character, and now this famous architect guy. He has to be a real guy, right, because who would name a fictional character after a pop culture person? Like, here’s a movie about famed architect Ricky Ricardo or Joe Garagiola, and it’s three and a half hours long.
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In contrast, here is the entirety of Simon and Garfunkel’s Cecilia:
‘Cilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily /
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please to come home /
Come on home
Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia, up in my bedroom (making love) /
I got up to wash my face, when I come back to bed, someone’s taken my place /
Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall on the floor and I’m laughing
I would bet draft one was “up in our bedroom,” but “my” bedroom makes Cecilia just so much worse.
I only mention this because this six-line song takes me on more of a journey than that movie. I care about the singer, and I hate Cecilia, who can’t help who she is, likely because of her heroin addiction and the burden of her Roman nose.