The Brutalist is a film that is complex and many-layered, full of great moments and deep meanings. It works on many levels: aesthetic, psychological and social; bears multiple viewings and repeated contemplation. Highly recommended.
It is 1946. The Jewish-Hungarian holocaust survivor and architect Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), boards a ship in Bremerhaven that will take him to a new life in the United States. He leaves behind his wife Erszebet (Felicity Jones) who looks after Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) the traumatized daughter of Toth's late sister. Toth will try and reunite the family in the US, jumping through the hoops of the US immigration system.
After a short time in New York, he travels to Philadelphia where his cousin who has converted to Catholicism and married a catholic wife and changed his name from Molnar to Miller owns a furniture store. When a customer, Harry Lee van Buren (Joe Alwyn) asks the furniture store owners to surprise his father with a redesign of his library Toth gets the chance to apply the Bauhaus International Style of Architecture paired with his own extraordinary talent to a small project for one of the leading citizens from the best old families in Pennsylvania. An advertising film for the state of Pennsylvania informs us that in the late 1940s and early 1950s Pennsylvania is the state of industry, steel and decisions. Toth's first project meets some resistance but eventually gets him Harrison Lee van Buren (Guy Pearce) as a seemingly friendly and certainly powerful sponsor. A prestigious engagement soon follows.
There is little to stir up grudging admiration and deep visceral resentment more completely than brutalist architecture imposed on the good citizens of 1950 Philadelphia by a know-it-all Jewish survivor with a strong central European accent who is engaged by an entitled old money family that wants to set itself a permanent monument whose aesthetics run contrary to accepted taste.
Brady Corbet's 4-hour drama is a powerful description of the experience of holocaust surviving artists and intellectuals who arrived in the US with a modicum of success and a track record of professional achievement in Europe dating from before World War II. Relentless in their wish to overcome the experience of being the central targets of humiliation and mass killing with the goal of total personal destruction they seek to justify their miraculous survival by making a success of the unexpected new life they have been granted. They face wonderful opportunities from the people on whom they now depend while continuing to risk at any moment to become the target for resentment, humiliation, sexual exploitation, mockery and being reminded where their place is in the hierarchy of the society they have joined. The good and the bad they are subject to is both extreme and close together and they have to harden their body and mind to cope. But cope they will.
The film is perhaps overloaded with these good experiences all happening to its fictional characters Laszlo, Erszebet and Zsofia. But it rings true nonetheless as it shows wounded people summoning strength as best they can to suffer through these trials while maintaining their strong bond and their self-respect. They constantly have to decide at a moment's notice which humiliation to swallow and which to fight against, while being haunted by the ghosts of the past.
When Erszebet tells Laszlo that she likes his design for the megalomanic community centre envisages, she refers to the height of his narrow spaces which reminds her of the cells in Buchenwald. Taking the worst experience of your life and turning it into creative design is a way to overcome some of the trauma of Buchenwald - it is a private triumph full of personal meaning in overcoming their experience as a prisoner at Buchenwald concentration camp which Laszlo and his wife share at this moment.
Corbet's excellent direction and the editing of this film ensures that the architecture, the photography with its wonky angles and perspectives fits the story line as experienced by its protagonists perfectly. The acting is excellent with Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce standing out in this high-quality cast. The film deserves the many prizes it has won, among them Oscars for Michael Blumberg (musical score), Adrien Brody (leading actor), Lol Crawley (cinematography).
The result is a film that is complex and many-layered, not easy and not short but so full of moments and meanings aesthetic, psychological and social - that it bears multiple viewings and repeated contemplation. The four hours passed surprisingly quickly. Highly recommended.
It is 1946. The Jewish-Hungarian holocaust survivor and architect Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), boards a ship in Bremerhaven that will take him to a new life in the United States. He leaves behind his wife Erszebet (Felicity Jones) who looks after Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) the traumatized daughter of Toth's late sister. Toth will try and reunite the family in the US, jumping through the hoops of the US immigration system.
