If there is but one outlandishly ambitious down-to-earth and poetic film that you will see this year, that is about an architect who is a dreamer and wants to create buildings that will be built in the future, then it should definitely be “The Brutalist.” I mean, to choose the film “The Brutalist” , Brady Corbet’s third feature, over Francis Ford Coppola’s architectural saga “Megalopolis” which becomes entertaining for an hour or so before turning into an oversize folly, which is quite the opposite of what should be large. How is it possible that Francis Ford Coppola one of the most prominent retro classicists of the New Hollywood era, ever believed that he was an abstract futurist? This is a picture that gets blown into a million glass pieces.
Unlike The Brutalist, Brady Corbet goes the opposite way with his next The Brutalist. In marked contrast to this work, the first two films, the fascist parable The Childhood of a Leader (2015) and the pop star parable Vox Lux (2018), contained some brilliant ties among the mawkishness. However, The Brutalist comes dangerously close to being a film of retro classicism. It is three hours and 15 minutes long, it has a steady pacing, it is full of incidences and emotions, and it tells the story of László Toth, played by Adrien Brody a Hungarian Jew architect who immigrates to America after WWI, the way it would be told in a documentary about the person himself, directed by Corbet.
With that name if the protagonist rings bells, it is because in 1972, Laszlo Toth was the Hammer wielding, Australian geologist born in Hungary who vandalized Michelangelo’s Pieta. To Corbet’s credit, he indeed pays homage to his ill advised stunt by naming his fictitious anti hero after this lunatic, and whilst there is some hint of such trivialization as an in joke, that reference in fact isn’t meant be simply a joke. It’s simply the film’s premise that a true artist or creator is a man somehow always related to destruction.
I may be the only one who thinks that Adrien Brody’s Oscar-winning performance in ‘The Pianist’ was way overhyped. In my view, he merely stared through that role and wow, there was a lot of nothing in that movie. However, in ‘The Brutalist’, Brody plays one more wandering Jew László comes to America by a boat, passes through Ellis Island and even in the extreme of his performance, deep down inside, there are feelings and passion and a lot of strong emotion.
At first, Brody makes László sullen and shy and rather innocuous, who is nothing more than an exhaustion refugee attempting to lie low and survive. But even this is quite the picture from the beginning. The drama has a different perspective from the onset of the movie; Corbet presents a gripping side angle of the Statue of liberty as László comes out of the ship. This is then followed by lewd sex which is insulting in its own right (not because László hires a prostitute, but because Corbet depicted their sexual encounter with an element of unflinching realism). Two characters are involved in a heated dispute: “Your face is ugly,” she tells him. “I know it is,” says László. The two encounters foreshadow some form of life that is hidden in László, and so does more deleting actions: László disliked his nose and had broken it at some point; on the way to America he used heroin to mask the aching. He still uses it now and, what is more, he will be a secret addict for the rest of the film. Which is very Russian of him.
László has never seen America before, and his first stop is Pennsylvania, where he hopes to get his bearings at his cousin Attila’s place, played out by Alessandro Nicola. Attila is a maverick who runs a custom furniture business and dabbles in things he should not be dabbling in.
He accommodates László in a storage space in the back of the shop. For some time, László forms a makeshift family with Attila and his wife, the WASP by the name of Audrey (played by Emma Laird), who later emerges as the first unwelcome sign of betrayal in the film.
They don’t stay long without a furniture job: father’s son, local billionaire, Harry Lee (Joe Alwyn) had a simple idea about taking some graffitied and historical reading existing rather for his contemporary room and making it over into a modern library. (It’s good to note this is going to be a surprise). László is absolutely the right person for the job. By the time, not much has been revealed about him (but showing it in the course of the film is the Corbet way), yet everything created by László in the library which he envisioned to include skylights, geometrically unfolding slats, rounded cushions that are gracefully integrated into the wall, is astonishing to say the least.
When Harrison Lee Van Buren (played by Guy Pearce) walked into his estate and witnessed the alteration of a treasured space, his blood boiled. László and Attila are forced out of the premises and receive only half their dues. But it seems that Van Buren is just the type of person who likes everything under control (and he was all in because his mother was on her deathbed). Part of them is the brand new state of the art library that gets featured in Look magazine. Van Buren is also quick to touch base with László receiving at least one of his inhalation events. This man not only wants to pay him off but he also desires to join him in construction, role, and history; in building and ‘designing the future.’
He worked through stylization of expression and movement in multiple scenes, which is quite an elaborated process and seldom do we come across performers engaging with the role like Pearce has here, that is, effortlessly. Lawrence Graham, in “It’s a Treat to Play You”; depicts the character as a tall man in his fifties with thick hair and a prominent mustache. He’s dressed in a black jacket, exuding the gruff appeal of Gable and boasting a powerful, incredibly plummy voice, making him appealing. Can a speech be this halting and captivating at once? The formulation of the narrations takes on a divergent undertone, which, coupled with this scene, can be summed up as: Osteen is setting the stage to take on Marx exactly how it’s supposed to be. This particular image then returns in the form of a question with a powerful rhetorical impact, creating a captivating connection between László Kosseff and one of the character’s eyes. While László Kosseff has a nationwide mention due to his previous work, Marx Kosseff seems inexplicably obsessed with Kosseff. He learns that he isn’t just an artist: he’s also an exploiter, a bitter struggle of roles. In the first half, some introductory parts feature his problems, a commercial performance become dominant later. But now, László Kosseff hopes to showcase his passion, as he is a well-known figure within the country an originator of a Hungarian brutalist design. Without spoilers, tell us about something you want to convey through your film? Kosseff’s last name reflects his Hungarian descent in X society but still allows interaction with others and secure a meaningful life. These words carry a grave expectation, and rarely does a compliment sound so damaging.
He envisions for the future Washington County the same kind of solid structures he created in Chicago, with robust mix of concrete and functional performance, which is exactly what Van Buren commissioned to him for this site: a cement and Italian marble structure which is an attractive combination of in one building an auditoria, a gymnasium, a library and even a chapel that would be positioned as a centerpiece in town Doylestown, Bucks County. Its price will be 850,000 dollars which in fifties could only be dreamed of.
The last third of the movie starts with the first appearance of a very special, but not very healthy woman, László’s wife Erisbel (Felicity Jones), who suffers from osteoporosis due to malnourishment in a concentration camp and is today confined to a wheelchair. She is the woman that László has been affectionately waiting for, but it depicted Jones’s character with a domineering part of Old World fierce centuries that brings home the movie. Their bundle of joy which is supposed to be a love story isn’t and from this moment onwards it will be ‘mesa aims’ for László, life will not be easy.
The story behind the building reveals the kind of theatrical development one sees in ‘The Fountainhead’ as well as ‘There Will Be Blood’. It is not a mere structure. It is an American quest that is beautiful yet dangerous. The money keeps running out; Laszlo’s offer to forego his pay is an early indicator that he is going too far. His niece, Sofia (Raffey Cassidy), has traveled with Erisbel and the situation becomes even worse when Harry, Van Buren’s son, takes a violent liking to the girl. And what about the László Van Buren bond? It becomes a more and more absorbing antagonistic coexistence, which reaches its peak in the spectacular scene filmed in the marble quarries in Italy when Van Buren carries out an act that is both terrible and highly symbolic crime.
Here there could be a possibility of going overboard with metaphors. What does ‘The Brutalist’ aim to showcase? The main themes are those of the immigrant spirit, the thirst for success, and the question of an artist’s identity. And it is also a narrative about being a Jew in a world of deep seated indifference towards Jews. This angle of the narrative, however, seems a little exaggerated since the time it deals with was an epoch of massive integration. What is apparent, however, is that ‘the film needed to be made’ from Corbet’s perspective, who wanted to make something relevant. Whether it will be perceived as such remains to be seen and I believe is up to the individual. In most ways, The Brutalist is a film that explores the complexities surrounding the course of a man’s life. Perhaps that is enough meaning.
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