The time has finally come, and it is nothing like I have ever seen before. Ever since it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2024 – where it received a twelve-minute standing ovation and won director Brady Corbet the Silver Lion for best director – most of us have been waiting to catch Brady Corbet’s drama, The Brutalist (2024). Following its acclaim from Venice, it then proceeded to the Toronto International Film Festival to screen for buyers and a very limited public audience. This 215-minute film (with a 15-minute intermission woven in) has received numerous awards already without even being available to the general public. The Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture winner and Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama. As well as nine BAFTA nominations; and now an additional ten Academy Award nominations, The Brutalist may just be the award season film of the year.
The Brutalist is Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s original story about the fictional (let’s not get Tár’d again) visionary architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) – a Hungarian-born Jew – who escapes post-war Europe as he arrives in America to rebuild his life. After being forced away from his wife during the war, shifting borders and regimes, it is time for Tóth to fix this connection, and recommence his work. As his strange journey progresses, he finds himself settled in Pennsylvania, and in the company of wealthy, and prominent, industrialist Harrison Lee (Guy Pearce) who sees his talent for architecture. What happens next is, what we all know to be true, success, power and lasting legacy may be the highlights of the American dream, but at what cost?
Brutal is one word to describe Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, and in so many ways the film continues to show you why that is so. The Brutalist in the film sense, follows Tóth’s life from him arriving in America until completion of a festival in his honour, many years later. Corbet’s use of time stamping each part of the film – Overture, Part one: The Enigma of Arrival, Part two: The Hard Core of Beauty, and the Epilogue: The First Architecture Biennale – allows the audience to know specifically where they are in Tóth’s life (the use of archival footage from past happenings in post-war America, where they state the specific day, is also useful). Not only did Corbet choose to make a film that showcases the escape of a Hungarian born Jewish man from a country that did not want him, but the trauma and strain an artist (architect in Tóth’s case) goes through to be able to keep going and take on doing what they hold most dear to them. Choosing to split the film into two with a carefully crafted intermission in between truly showcases the beauty that the American dream can seem to be versus the dark underbelly that is underneath.
Hooking the viewer right from the get-go is the film’s score. Absolutely captivating. The first notes that audiences hear as the Overture appears on screen till the moment when László emerges from the interior of the ship to the Statue of Liberty in his sights deliver such a state of tension and unease. And though this state of unease is felt, there is pure passion and relief as well. Through Corbet’s combination of cinematography and score, the audience is transported into this beautiful, brutal world of America.
Viewing The Brutalist on a 70mm print changes the way the film is seen. You get the crisp colours and the flickers and cuts between reels. And though there has been some AI used on voices, nothing in the films shots or landscapes feels fake. Each shot is crafted with such precision and care, the same way in which architect’s hone their craft. Using the idea of the journey Tóth is on, at one point during each scene where they are traveling to somewhere else, the audience is shown the path (or road, or tracks) they are taking as the characters continue their conversation in voice over, and in this moment, we are made to feel like we are the vehicle taking the character on their journey, travelling with them in this moment. This, along with the carefully filmed handheld camera shots, invite the audience to become a part of the film.
Steering away from the misuse, and perhaps unnecessary use, of an AI voice modification, while Adrien Brody did convey intense emotions and madness in the role of László Tóth, the supporting cast performed just as well, if not even better. While Guy Pearce (Harrison Lee Van Buren) comes off strange when he is first introduced to the audience, shouting and screaming like a mad man – somewhat reminiscent of Matt Damon’s role as Leslie Groves – once it is toned down to acting, the performance is stellar. He encapsulates the role and portrays it just how you would expect. Changing from the American businessman who wants to give the architect what he wants and showcase his skills, to the true brutal American, the ass hole who is only in it for himself. Then when Erzsébet Tóth (Felicity Jones) comes to the screen in part two, the emotion leaks through the screen.
The second part of the film, following the interwoven intermission, loses pace but still keeps its cinematic storytelling. Changing pace and tone completely, the film dives deep into the troubles with the Tóth marriage, his use of drugs, the darkness of the American dream, and the truth behind Van Buren comes out. Instead of showcasing the architecture and form, it feels more like a revelation of the truth behind what artists go through to keep them going, what they give up crafting their art.
Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist is anything less than a cinematic masterpiece, a grand feat. Though it slows in the second half, and lost me ever so slightly with metaphors, and grandiose language, it still remains gorgeous to the eye. It is all a bit big at times, and that is how life can be. Life is brutal.
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