THE BRUTALIST (2024)
Directed by Brady Corbet
A24, 215 minutes, R (language, brief graphic sex, adult situations)
★★ ½
The Brutalist was a polarizing film. Most critics loved it and it won three Oscars; yet it did poorly in North America. It made some money though. Despite its epic pretensions, the budget was quite low. I found it half of a brilliant film and half of a trainwreck. In part, audiences stayed away because of its length. Like its central character, architect Lásló Tóth (Adrien Brody), director Brady Corbet allowed his vision (and perhaps a touch of megalomania) to get the better of him. Those who loved the film will disagree, but it’s seldom a financial boon to get too far ahead of what movie-goers expect. At 3 hours and 45 minutes, The Brutalist is told in chapters and had an intermission so patrons could stretch and go to the loo.
The Brutalist is not a biopic. Corbet and Mona Fastvold based Tóth on several post-World War II Jewish modernist architects (among them, Marcel Breuer, Erno Goldfinger, and Louis Kahn). They often took on largescale projects made more affordable by using poured concrete. “Brutalist” has a double meaning in Corbet’s film; brut is French for raw and unrefined, as in using unfinished, unornamented concrete. It’s a controversial style who advocates praise its spare look that emphasizes shapes and utilitarianism; others find it ugly, heavy, and evocative of a prison. (Which is why numerous post-Holocaust Jews embraced it!) As we discover, Tóth has brutal aspects of a different sort.
Tóth and his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) are of Czech ancestry. Both survived the Nazi death camps, but Lásló first got permission to emigrate from Europe; Erzsébet and their daughter Zsófia were stuck for years in Europe. Lásló’s adjustment to America is not smooth. After a harsh (and smutty) journey, Lásló goes to Philadelphia where his cousin Attila runs a small furniture and design shop. He has also changed his surname to Miller and is married a Catholic woman who lies to get her way. Nor were Lásló’s designs greeted well. He does, though, help Attila get commissions through his business acumen. Lásló’s biggest coup is redoing a library in Doylestown for rich industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) as a surprise birthday present from his snooty son Harry (Joe Alwyn). When Harrison returns from a trip, he absolutely hates the design, fires Lásló, and refuses to pay. That is, until he finds out that Tóth was famous in Europe and starts getting praise for his bold, modern library.
The story of an artist and an abusive patron is one of the oldest in art history. Harrison is at turns sycophantic toward Lásló, jealous of his talent, his protector, and his tormentor. Lásló is commissioned to build the Van Buren Institute, a massive concrete community center, gym, and Protestant chapel complex. Not only is it a clash of egos and religious beliefs, it’s one of Lásló’s heroin addiction and Harrison’s alcoholism. When Erzsébet and Zsófia arrive, things get more complicated. Zsófia is mute from death camp trauma and Erzsébet, though sexually active, is wheelchair bound from osteoporosis (the subtitle said osteomyelitis). Harry has become a conniving SOB who undermines everyone, and Harrison’s volatile cashflow leads to demands for cost cuts, which Lásló refuses to do to the point of offering to pay for overruns himself. Another major crisis occurs when Lásló and Harrison go to Carrara to pick out marble for the altar. Will the concrete white elephant ever get built? The Brutalist borrows themes of megalomania from Citizen Kane, but is also about prejudice toward outsiders (racial, religious, national, socially inferior).
The film spirals out of control after the intermission when the focus shifts from an immigration story to a construction project sullied by rancor from numerous directions. Corbet attempt at a sweepingly epic like The Godfather saga begins to leak like raw concrete. In the confusing second half, un- or barely-introduced characters drop in and out, along with unresolved mysteries, and dropped storylines. The film’s epilogue is an unexplained out-of-nowhere tribute to Tóth.
I was sad that the promising first part of the movie disintegrated before my eyes. The Brutalist could have taken its place among epics such as Schindler’s List, The Last Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Citizen Kane. Alas, it crumbled like the Van Buren Center.
Rob Weir
Note 1: Corbet admired the music of the late Scott Walker and dedicated the film to him. Walker’s music was also quite controversial, innovative to some and strident for others.
Note 2: Here are two examples of brutalist architecture: Boston City Hall and the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center.
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