It is a cacophonous film, featuring overlapping dialogue and voiceovers, diegetic needledrops that cross edits and a nondiegetic score that builds to staggering foghorns. It has multiple aspect ratios, slow-motion footage, time-lapse footage, montages, documentary reels, dizzying camera angles, disorienting close-up oners, and, obviously, grand reveals of monumental structures.
The film has two main parts, titled "Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival" and "Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty," with an "overture" and an epilogue. Part 1 expresses a…