Rent The Brutalist (2024)

Very impressive, novelistic work with weighty themes - The Brutalist review by PD

Yeah, I'm in. This is an austere, novelistic, self-consciously important film that unfurls in a measured sprawl over 3 hours, but nonetheless exerts an iron grip throughout. It mulls on some weighty themes of Jewish identity, the immigrant experience, privilege, culture-versus-commerce, the thin lines between inspiration and insanity, ambition and crushing egotism, creativity and compromise, architectural integrity, the arrogant insularity of privilege and the long reach of the past. The result is a very impressive, serious piece about a man of genius who gets to taste the American Dream but also feel the stinging humiliation of a conditional welcome that turns ice-cold.

It begins in 1947, as Hungarian-born Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody, fabulous throughout, brimming with pain and passion in equal measure) spills from the bowels of a teeming ship to eye Ellis Island’s famous statue. From Tóth’s angle, Lady Liberty appears upside down, and America, land of dreams, will prove a frequently topsy-turvy, nauseating experience for Tóth over the next 30 years. Like Corbet’s provocative first two films, (The Childhood Of A Leader and Vox Lux) 'The Brutalist' charts the rise of an enigmatic figure., about which we first we know little other that he awaits the arrival of his wife, Erzsébet (an excellent Felicity Jones when she appears - her role seems almost marginal at first, but her character steadily grows in stature), and his niece, Zsófia, who remain in Europe after the war. But slowly, brick by brick, the pieces are dropped into place, and we learn that Tóth is a celebrated architect of the Bauhaus school. At once ugly and beautiful, the jutting, concrete blocks of his 'Brutalist' structures seek to shape an aesthetic future.

In silence Tóth speaks volumes; a halting, traumatised figure in the first half, whilst by contrast, post-intermission, Tóth’s words escalate and his emotions amplify, uncorked by the arrival of Erzsébet and Zsófia. There’s also the construction of a prodigious building that will serve as auditorium, chapel, library and gymnasium, and the clashes with domineering patron Harrison Van Buren that come with it. Unnerving even when he’s being charming, Van Buren creates a strange push-pull to his relationship with Tóth, currents of admiration and envy, power and disgust swirling beneath the surface. Corbet, perhaps, sees echoes of his own experience — the visionary artist beholden to the whims of myopic moneymen — and then pours cultural prejudice into the mix. For the Van Burens are revealed to be the quintessence of moral corruption bred by wealth and power; (only Harry’s twin sister Maggie seems to value genuine kindness) the film becoming a scathing critique of the ways in which America’s moneyed and privileged class gains cachet through the labour and creativity of immigrants while never considering them equals; despite Harrison’s big pronouncements on the responsibility of the rich to nurture the great artists of their time, he’s a cultural gatekeeper in an exclusionary club. Despising weakness, he ultimately cuts László down to size with a pitilessness that in hindsight seems preordained from their first encounter.

Editor David Jancso threads the sprawling story with a flow that pulls us along nicely, incorporating archival material for historical context. And Lol Crawley’s cinematography is magnificent, never more so than when prowling the mausoleum-like halls of the unfinished project or the tunnels of Carrera. Together with production designer Judy Becker and costumer Kate Forbes, the DP shows a remarkably attentive eye for detail, conjuring the look of mid-century America with a period verisimilitude that feels truly alive - seldom have we been transported to the past so effectively.

A truly awesome film in every respect.

Very long, very slow and very boring - The Brutalist review by Alphaville

Messy hugely overlong not-very-interesting saga of a post-war Jewish immigrant making his way in the US. Slow-paced, long drawn-out scenes, a boring plot that takes ages to go anywhere. All this detracts from any emotional involvement and just irritates. Get in with it! After three hours, at last there’s an interesting scene… but it’s hardly worth the wait .