The Brutalist — scrobble.life

From director Brady Corbet’s "The Brutalist", a movie I have been postponing for quite some time, what a mega project that is 3 hours and 35 minutes long, yeah I needed to make time for this one. The film is an ambitious post war American epic that truly lives up to its name in every sense of the word, style and essence, but it does have its flaws. A movie that has the feel of an old fashioned Hollywood master piece while dealing with issues that are all very current to now days.

The film opens with one of the most striking sequences I've seen in recent cinema with a disorienting, shadowy journey through a crowded ship that culminates with the main character Laszlo Toth, role played by Adrien Brody (Mr. The Pianist), from the darkness of the crowded ship to final see the Statue of Liberty upside down from the perspective he was looking at, its the classic arrival scene for immigrants but things wont go Laszlo's way. But instead of presenting this iconic symbol of freedom upright, Corbet shows it sideways and upside down, immediately advertising that the American dream might not be what it seems during this story. This opening scene sets the tone for everything that follows after, a visual metaphor that at first I was not sure why Cobert choose it but now after I finish watching the movie its evidence of how things started to go not as planned from the very beginning, the life of an architect who went to America looking for a brighter future after War in Europe to find his life drastically change in more than one way.

I know that no matter how long my post is, I wont be able to cover the entire movie, consider this just my brief opinion on it and I'm 110% sure that there are many aspects and details I will be missing to explain considering the monstrosity of lenght that this movie is, I had to take two breaks to finish, not because its not a good movie but because it is such a big story full of metaphors, suffering, happiness, all kind of feelings and situations that you could imagine.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8999762/
Platform: AppleTV+

Rottentomatoes Rating

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Source What makes the movie stand out is how it is a story with a combination of many things at once that makes it hard to categorize, simultaneously a story about immigration, architecture, capitalism, art, addiction and the Jewish experience in post war America, no wonder this movie is over 3 hours. In my opinion the movie does have that deep feeling of a great American novel brought to life, specially how it works out its themes around characters in ways that feel natural and never forced as any character development through a story should be. The film's structure, complete with titled chapters gives it a literary quality that lift up the quality and scope of the story.

The story follows Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who arrives in America after World War II, separated from his wife Erzsebet, role played by Felicity Jones; and their niece Zsofia, played by Raffey Cassidy. I'm glad that the movie doesn't focus on Laszlo's experiences during the war directly but instead shows the aftermath of what it was been a survivor representing them through shadows and the heavy emotional weight Brody shows through out his entire performance. Laszlo initially stays with his cousin Attila , played by Alessandro Nivola; in Philadelphia, working at his furniture store while dealing with the trauma of his past through a growing heroin addiction, which he initially took to manage the pain of a broken nose.

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Source Laszlo's life changes dramatically when he basically stumble in the life of a wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren. After designing a stunning modern library in Van Buren's mansion that initially enrages Harrison but later impresses him, Laszlo is latter given the task to design a massive community center on Van Buren's estate. This project becomes the central focus and spot light of the movie, becoming Laszlo's artistic ambition and the complicated relationship between art and capitalism, something that Laszlo sometimes didn't deal too well with. Van Buren offers to help bring Laszlo's wife and niece to America, using his wealth and connections to reduce the stress and time that takes to deal with the immigration process, but this assistance comes with strings attached that become increasingly problematic as the movie progresses, there is not such a thing as free.

On the second half of the movie there is the expected arrival of Laszlo's wife Erzsebet although she is on a wheelchair due to osteoporosis caused by her time in the concentration camps, and Zsofia who is basically mute from her traumatic experiences at the time. Erzsebet becomes the eyes that Laszlo needed at the time to realize what was going on, he had a more cleared vision of situation and this creates friction with Laszlo obsession with his architectural project that eventually became too big of a project and funds started to run low and this is when his relationship with Van Buren started to take a dark turn to a point that it was clearly exploitative, a very cliche story of how artist can become obsess with a project and vision that will go to any extend possible until he can watch it materialize.

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Source The pacing during the movie is generally great for such a long movie, but towards the ending there is the introduction of subplots and ideas that aren't fully developed, creating a sense of unfinished business. The most obvious example is Harrison Van Buren's disappearance, after Erzsebet publicly accuses him of raping Laszlo, he literally vanishes during a search sequence through the community center. The movie never really explains what happened to him, did he commit suicide? Did he just leave? Was there something supernatural about his disappearance?. There's a sexual assault scene that feels unnecessarily explicit and somewhat out of touch, I could understand that it would be the maximal exploitation of the artist by capitalism as a metaphor.

I was very impressed by how the movie explore themes of the tension between the artist integrity and how commercial demand can tend to make him go off rails because of it. Laszlo is clearly an outsider that just doesn't fit into the American dream as its typically sold where anyone can adapt, but not Laszlo, he is just too different in every possible way. A very passionate man mostly shown at work where is was sometimes explaining his design philosophy and watching his creations take shape, this are some of the most engaging in the film.

The Brutalist is a movie that in my opinion demands to be seen on the big screen, its a really immersive story that can take benefits of such setup preferably in its intended 70mm format to fully appreciate all the details, truly immersive viewing experience that digital just cant deliver, something that director Corbet made very clear during an interview where he was ask why the 70mm format. Corbet has created something truly ambitious here and I would say its funny how his work can be compared as Laszlo project as in how massive both were, a movie that feels both classic and modern, both intimate and epic between the themes and situations that go down. The performances, specially from Brody and Pearce are some of the best I have personally seen on a movie like this, a drama that never really felt boring and kept me interested for the most part.

Despite its flaws on the story towards the second half, as mention before this big cliffhanger that stop the movie to properly wrap things up into a satisfying conclusion, the movie remains a powerful piece of meditation and reflection on immigration, artists and the brutal reality behind what could be the adversities one has to face to finger tip the American dream, that kind of movie that's rents a place in your head for sometime and keeps you thinking one how others went through similar situations and that its not far from reality.

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