‘The Brutalist‘ (2024) is a very ambitious film. Brady Corbet is at his third feature film and, although he is relatively little known as a director, he has managed to co-write an original and complex script, attract a very well-made team of actors, but above all to create an original vision, which combines cinematography with the other art that is synthesis of all other arts – architecture. ‘The Brutalist‘ has the format of a great American story on screen, with immigration and larger-than-life projects as only in America can be thought of and realized, with characters who seem chosen from Hollywood mythology. The cinematic methods used revive several forgotten technical and format aspects and bring them back to the screens in a timely and meaningful way. However, viewers will be surprised especially by the dark aspects of the story and of the characters. This apparent American success story hides the deep suffering of the characters who live it.
The main character of the film is an imaginary personality, but he is so well conceived that viewers who have not been warned will open their smartphones upon leaving the screening room (or during the intermission) to search for the name of the famous architect László Tóth. This fictional hero is actually the merging of several real personalities, including two illustrious architects, both Hungarian Jews by origin, with remarkable contributions to the history of 20th-century architecture. In the scene that opens the film, our hero emerges from a dark and crowded labyrinth (the hold of the ship on which he crossed the Atlantic) and the first thing he sees is the Statue of Liberty. But not vertical and majestic as we know it, but upside down, at an unnatural angle. From here begins a film about a variant of the American dream that does not unfold as in optimistic scenarios. A renowned architect, trained at the Bauhaus, László Tóth had been reduced to the status of a subhuman during the Holocaust, deported to camps, separated from his family. He survived with difficulty and it would be almost a decade before his wife Erzsébet, who had also been through the camps and whose health was ruined, could join him. Until then, he would go through the difficult years of the beginning of his journey, as an anonymous immigrant. Helped at first and then rejected by his family, Tóth would meet Harrison Van Buren, a tycoon who would discover his past and see in him an opportunity. It would be his chance and his curse. The meeting between European and American mentalities was not easy, neither socially, artistically nor humanly. Van Buren would pull him out of poverty, help him bring his family to America and commission him a monumental building. This will become a symbol of the relationships and conflicts between the two: dream, contribution to the community, professional ambition, perfectionism for one; social recognition, institutionalized faith, grandeur, crypt for the other. Between the immigrant and his benefactor, between the architect and his patron, between two men with different origins and destinies, a meeting takes place in which the sublime and the abject, the lights and the darkness of human souls come together.
I am very curious to know the opinion of my architect friends about this film. To me, it also seemed to be an ode dedicated to their wonderful profession, the passion, the obsessive dedication and the perfectionism of great artists. The film itself is not only full of details related to the architectural profession (which I cannot judge how authentic they are) but is also architecturally conceived as a structure, with a classical symmetry translated into cinematic sections: overture, two main parts, an epilogue. Director Brady Corbet brings back from the history of cinema, forgotten or perhaps even unknown to young viewers, two elements that have been little used in recent decades: the intermission in the middle of the screening (so useful at a duration of 3 and a half hours) and the VistaVision filming, a wide screen process dating from the 50s in which most of the story takes place, very suitable for a world seen through the eyes of architects. Adrien Brody creates one of the great roles of his career. His László Tóth brings to the screen the dilemmas of great artists working in the service of their benefactors, the drama of Holocaust survivors and the impossibility of adapting to the conditions of a society that does not always easily accept differences and exceptions. Felicity Jones in the role of the architect’s wife seemed slightly miscast to me at first (too young in physiognomy) but then her role gained in intensity, reminding me of the character of Felicia Montealegro Bernstein in ‘Maestro’. Only Guy Pearce, who plays Van Buren, fails, in my opinion, to peer the intensity and complexity of Brody’s performance. This is, however, a minor minus of a film that proposes a monumental cinematic vision and vibrant acting. I will be disappointed if ‘The Brutalist‘ does not receive the Best Picture Academy Award.