The Brutalist (2024)
January 11, 2025 6:44 PM - Subscribe

Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Tóth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet after being forced apart during wartime by shifting borders and regimes. On his own in a strange new country, László settles in Pennsylvania, where the wealthy and prominent industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren recognizes his talent for building. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost.

RogerEbert.com:
One of the many things that makes Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” so essential is how it defies easy categorization. It is “about” so many things without specifically hammering, highlighting, or bullet-pointing them. Sure, it’s impossible to miss the commentary on capitalism embedded in the script by Corbet and Mona Fastvold. Still, it’s also a story of immigration, addiction, Zionism, architecture, inequity, class, violence, and even filmmaking. The word ambitious is overused in modern criticism, but the very existence of “The Brutalist” feels like a miracle: An original story shot on VistaVision cameras, released in 70mm, complete with overture and intermission. It’s a film that turns inward into itself, winding its themes around its characters like a great American novel.
The Guardian:
It is an electrifying piece of work, stunningly shot by cinematographer Lol Crawley and superbly designed by Judy Becker. I emerged from this movie light-headed and euphoric, dizzy with rubbernecking at its monumental vastness.
posted by dnash (14 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm going to try to see it next week. Excited!
posted by Lemkin at 9:08 PM on January 11


God they better bring this to my local art house cinema.
posted by thecaddy at 7:08 PM on January 12


Just saw it today. I am still buzzing from the experience. And that's what it was to me -- an experience. I spent 3.5 hours completely immersed in this character's world. I feel like I know him like I would a family member.

The film is epic in scope but also sometimes acutely and painfully intimate. It's about so much, almost too much to fit into the very long runtime: the immigrant experience of Jewish Holocaust survivors, unexpressed or even verbally inexpressible grief, the relationship between capitalism and the arts, American industrialism and excess, and, to me, most of all about how a static monument can also be a living expression of a person's entire life.

It's also gorgeous to behold. The cinematography is breathtaking. And the score. OMG the score. It's etherial, propulsive, deeply moving, and deeply grounded, all at the same time (not unlike László architectural vision). Adrien Brody's performance is so utterly authentic that it's hard to imagine László as anything but a real person.

That said, the movie missed a few marks for me. It barely passed the Bechdel test -- there were only two women with significant agency and their worlds still resolved mostly around László. On the other hand Erzsébet, his wife and arguably his muse, has an identity that's as rich and complex and unmoored as his own. I just wish more of the women in the film hadn't seemed like props. There was also a storyline about his friendship with a Black man and his son that just kind of fizzled and went nowhere -- I suspect some of it was left on the cutting room floor. And then there is a very disquieting rape scene that some are considering too much of an on-the-nose metaphor (I don't entirely disagree) and could arguably be read as tinged with homophobia. Finally, and this is much more minor quibble, some of the dialogue was incomprehensible to me because it consisted of whispering in heavy Eastern European accents. There were quite a few plot points I barely caught because I could barely make out what anyone was saying (and this was in a state-of-the-art theater). But maybe I'm just getting old. If I watch it again, I'll definitely do so at home, with subtitles.

There's been a lot of buzz about the second half being a letdown compared to the first. I couldn't disagree more. The first half is largely optimism and promise and industrial fervor in the face of seemingly insurmountable difficulties whereas the second is the much more intimate and troubled the other side of the same coin. Both are necessary and, for me, the latter half flew by even quicker than the first. And I thought the epilogue tied the two parts together perfectly.

My final thought is that the credit music left me utterly bewildered. To say it's a jarring tonal shift is an understatement. I would love to hear opinions from those who thought it worked.
posted by treepour at 7:28 PM on January 12 [4 favorites]


My final thought is that the credit music left me utterly bewildered.

Completely agree. I was so confused, especially after 3+ hours of a phenomenal score.
posted by msbrauer at 10:24 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]


The opening sequence transitions into the first act with a disorienting, upside-down view of the Statue of Liberty, and this is mirrored with the upside-down cross at the end. I believe we are meant to feel and reflect on the disorientation of entering into a new and inexplicably hostile culture, and this is further reflected in the credit music.

Some other things I noticed from the film
I thought the Goethe quote from the movie an interesting choice: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Was the rape an act of subjugation by way of attacking this illusion of freedom? Laslo employed an anarchic sensibility; he inferred purpose behind existent systems and rebuilt them from the ground up as a unified whole, brutally excluding any elements that fail to serve the stated purpose. Laslo explained his approach towards architecture as causing social upheaval in the same scene that the butler impertinently interrupts his master's story to compliment the architect.

The drug use in the film was also interesting:
1. from a trope-defying angle wherein opiate use was neither glorified nor evidence of a tail-spin or downward spiral,
2. as a plot device to allow the character to push through some painful experience such as the revelation of the rape to Erzsébet, and
3. the post-enrichment drug binge after getting paid -- why was this part of the movie? I'm curious for other perspectives here.

It's an interesting and well crafted film, but it also strikes me as anti-American, for what it's worth. Whether that's just true to the perspective of the time, I don't know.
posted by grokus at 11:31 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]


For me it seemed anti-Anti-American. It showed just how un-American Americans are.

It's so enjoyable to see a movie that's a total experience. The theater where I saw it gave out posters and mock exhibition materials from the film. And as someone who considered becoming an architect and got immersed in the whole Bauhaus movement (inspired equally by LeCorbusier's chapel at Ronchamp and the crumbling buildings in my home town), it was satisfying to see it made so real. (Here's a chance for me to crow about the Brutalist beauty we have in town. I once cajoled someone into opening the doors to this decaying Brutalist chapel next door to it).

The rape scene emerged from a feeling very familiar to me. As soon as I saw Harrison and László's interaction at the cafe, I knew something like it was coming. László is on his own turf--Europe/the Continent--and he has the connections, he knows how this European world works, how time works, what beauty is. That in itself is humiliating to Harrison, and humiliating a guy like that means you get punished.

The twist at the end, about the Van Buren project, is haunting. Walking out of the theater I thought, Well that was the ultimate fuck you to Harrison and America. But that doesn't do it justice; it's much more than that.

The sound design also grabbed me from the beginning - out of sync in interesting ways, creating connective links and unexpected juxtapositions. The end credit song reminded me immediately of Clair Denis' Beau Travail, which also grapples with power, the "Other", masculinity, colonialism, and ends with a similar, and bizarre, note.
posted by cocoagirl at 1:17 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]


For me it seemed anti-Anti-American. It showed just how un-American Americans are.

I think that's my reaction as well. Also, the ways that the moneyed classes of America, as much as they crave the material prestige of art and culture, ultimately they do not respect those with the vision to actually create it. And maybe that's true of other countries - it probably is - but it seems to be a particularly prominent feature of America.

I respect how the movie keeps everything complicated. Lazlo is no obvious hero that's easy to cheer for, what with the drugs and the unwillingness to consider any compromise. (Plenty of great artists still make masterpieces while accepting advice from others and making adjustments for what's most feasible or possible with available resources.)

I think maybe the one thing I'm not fully satisfied by is Van Buren's disappearance after the dinner confrontation. Given the time period, his emphatic denial of the accusation would absolutely have held more weight, and he had zero reason to fear otherwise. So, where does he run off to? Are we meant to infer some kind of suicide? That doesn't make sense to me. Accidental death after a fall in the construction site? I could see that, but the film gives us no support for that either. Given that the whole film is a sort of myth or allegory, I don't actually mind him just "disappearing" (because the temperament he represents certainly has NOT been vanquished), but the editing/handling of it just felt awkward and rushed to me here.
posted by dnash at 4:20 PM on January 13


The reverse anti Americanist comment, I like, in that it appeals to our higher ideals, but this is left entirely to the viewer. Erzsébet further lobs harsh criticism upon the entire country and understandably so within her context. I was left reflecting on the brutal efficiency of Republics ala "les Miserables" and how they might be fair without being just or humane. I suppose ultimately the conflict here rests in whether we evaluate America as the ideal of what it should be or judge it as it is. I chose to operate under the harsh realist perspective adopted by the film. Critical idealism is equally valid.

Cocoagirl's suggestion of humiliation retaliation seems like a plausible direct cause.
posted by grokus at 5:45 PM on January 13


I didn't love it, but my wife did. I thought it was really uneven and that the editing felt rushed, which is weird when you're talking about a 3½ hour movie. To its credit I thought it didn't fall into the "important film" trap that I feared it would based on the trailer, but it felt very "Eastern European Director" to me. Maybe that's more of a thing in the plays and operas we've seen (my go-to bad example for this is Mariusz Treliński, who's directed some real hot messes at Washington National Opera), but to me there's a characteristic heavy reliance on broad strokes and set pieces, huge tonal shifts from scene to scene, and carelessness about inconsistencies. The establishing shots in Carrara (even the stillness of the shot of Tóth and Van Buren sitting outside the café) were such a shift from what had come before that it kind of broke my suspension of disbelief in the inverse — where did that cinematography come from?

The two of us were also divided on how so much of the characterization was literally just playing archetypes. I joked that it was "Guy Pearce as 'Wealthy Industrialist'" and my wife thought that what was so good about his performance was how he did exactly that but also brought realism and depth to it. She appreciated the intent, the form, and the execution, where I ran out of patience for it rather early in the second act.

I'm not mad I saw it, but it didn't all come together for me the way it is for a lot of people.
posted by fedward at 9:18 AM on January 14


I feel like "anti-American" is too strong and black-and-white of a description. My impression is that it was critical, didn't shy away from showing the warts and all but left a lot of room for nuance (similarly with László himself). At the end of the day, his vision was built and honored, and he and his immediately family found refuge after fleeing Eastern Europe (however troubled and fragile that refuge might have been).

Similarly, I don't feel like the second half was a typical "downfall" narrative following a typical "great man/industrialist" narrative. Both halves were troubled, the second certainly more so, but I don't see the second half, especially given the epilogue, as ultimately tragic (though it was certainly full of pain, trauma, and tragic moments). It felt like a fully lived experience to me, with all the highs and lows, triumphs and setbacks that come with life -- especially a life so intensely lived and felt
posted by treepour at 11:00 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]


It's been almost a full day and I'm still processing it but: holy shit, this was incredible
posted by thecaddy at 6:17 AM on January 21 [1 favorite]


I'm an immigrant kid, and so was hypersensitive to that part of there story, and boy -- did that all ring true. When the son said that Laszlo's kind would only ever be 'tolerated', he said the quiet part out loud. We see it through the whole film, that the immigrants will never, ever belong, Laszlo's entry to Van Buren's class was thanks to Van Buren's largesse, a self-tribute, the great artist now become a funny-talking novelty. Laszlo will never belong, he is kept. When they go to Italy, Laszlo could escape from under Van Buren's thumb, and show himself in his native environment, a greater person than his master. And of course, this was intolerable -- the artist had to be made to submit through thuggery.

As for the production itself, it was absolutely superb. The cinematography disjointed when needed to present disorder, peaceful when it reflected order. There were times when I actually gasped seeing the beauty. The score was masterful, but yeah -- that ending? I didn't get it. The acting was as good as any you'll ever see.

I thought the first act was superb, but it was the second act which really blew it away. It was like Vertigo that way -- you think you have a grasp on the story and where it's going, the first act ends, and then it's a big 'Now What?'. All of the pieces and characters had been developed enough -- fully realized people -- to just go along for the ride.

I've plenty of feelings and thoughts to sort through, and that'll take a while. Loved loved loved this.
posted by Capt. Renault at 5:20 PM on January 25


I like the idea of there being an 'in universe' reason for Adrien Brody's nose, and look forward to this being a feature in all his movies, as with Jean Claude van Damme's accent.
posted by biffa at 9:09 AM on February 3


I've never seen this movie before. I sorta kinda know the characters, but never the Bauhaus architect whose wife has early onset Osteoporosis from starvation in the camps... who is himself a frequent user of heroine... At the intermission we were both dreading the 'comeuppance' of his drug use... but that wasn't the story (thank god) - there were no easy choices made, no short-cuts to meaning. It had a character development similar to Mike Leigh movies, they just kept growing and evolving. Beautiful.

A gorgeous thing.

(Niggling points- VanBuren's disappearance, once it was clear we wouldn't find out what happened to him specifically I did not care - he was called out by Erzsébet and that was the point... it didn't bother me the 'lack' of a resolution. Also, it was clear to my SO that VanB was in a way in love with Toth (VanB didn't have a girlfriend) which scanned for me - after that first, empty meeting in the diner that seemed to move him so much. The thing I couldn't wrap my head around was the actor playing young Zsofia playing her own daughter in the epilogue... I couldn't figure that out, really. I liked the ending, the jarring music. It was appropriate, so much of the movie was jarring it that way. )
posted by From Bklyn at 9:32 AM on February 5


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