There is a single shot, right after a 15-minute intermission, that functions as a thesis statement for “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet’s vast and punishing vivisection of American myths filtered through the experiences of an Hungarian-born architect rebuilding his life after World War II.
Thousands of miles and several years from the horrors of Buchenwald, where the Jewish artist László Tóth was imprisoned, he sits with his Oxford-educated wife at the home of an affluent patron who has hired Tóth for a boondoggle of a construction project. Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce)—a self-important, high-society buffoon—makes a crass remark that Tóth’s spouse could help improve Tóth’s English so he sounds less like a shoeshine man. Van Buren flings a penny at Tóth in jest, and then asks for it back. In a brief close-up, Van Buren stretches his hand across the dinner table as Tóth passes the coin back to him. The architect is trapped under Van Buren’s polished heel, and the patron hopes to reap the benefits of Tóth’s labor.
Like the English sailor Charles Marlow of Joseph Conrad’s classic as he floats down the river into uncertain peril, Tóth unknowingly embarks on an increasingly harrowing voyage into the tangled heart of the American Dream. He encounters a wake of rapacious vultures stylishly disguised as benefactors, whose wealth and charm belie their true character as the mask slowly slips. In Van Buren, he meets America incarnate: confident, prosperous, greedy, domineering. The result is a challenging and piercing examination of a mid-century America that simultaneously welcomes and then exploits immigrant workers who have journeyed to the nation seeking refuge.
A 215-minute odyssey gorgeously shot in VistaVision, a widescreen format not seen in American cinema since the early 1960s, “The Brutalist” harkens back to a golden age of bravura filmmaking while pushing forward toward new cinematic possibilities through provocative storytelling. It is a singular, often overwhelming achievement that grows grander by the minute and heralds the artistic maturation of Corbet, a promising talent unafraid of broad swings and big questions. (I am deliberately avoiding the adjective “monumental” following a trailer that highlighted film critic cliches.)
“The Brutalist” is a serious, frequently surprising picture that lends itself to multiple interpretations—tackling European history, American industrialism, Jewish identity, the immigrant experience and so on. It is the best film of the year, and another crowning moment for a magnificent Adrien Brody more than two decades after his Oscar-winning turn in “The Pianist.” And Corbet seems to embrace comparisons between those two pictures. Both films find Brody as a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who is left to navigate the wreckage of the war. In “The Pianist,” Brody remains in Poland while “The Brutalist” follows what may have occurred if he had immigrated to America.
A brassy four-note phrase and an unsettling vision of the Statue of Liberty—adrift, upside-down, swirling in the wind—announces Tóth’s arrival to Ellis Island in 1947. His wife, Erzsébet, has remained in Europe and will not join him until the second act. He hops a bus to Philadelphia and finds work at a furniture showroom run by his cousin Attila. (He has Americanized his business as “Miller & Sons” in an appeal to local residents.)
Tóth appears thin, gaunt and reserved, but there is a vague air of mischief about him. He and Attila are contracted by Van Buren’s haughty son, a brilliantly unlikeable Joe Alwyn, to build a library at their palatial estate. They get off on the wrong foot initially, but the opportunistic Van Buren (played with both humor and cruelty by a magnetic Guy Pearce) later dreams up a sprawling, directionless project for Tóth to lead. He will build an auditorium, a chapel, a gymnasium, a “reading room,” whatever Van Buren asks. In need of money and shelter, and attracted by the chance to design some behemoth structure, Tóth accepts Van Buren’s offer and gets to work.
These events take us up to intermission. At the New York Film Festival press screening where I first saw the film, there were mumblings among critics that they did not care for the second half. Separate reviews have declared it “half of a great movie” and “half a masterpiece.” But I couldn’t disagree more.
While the first half is largely expository, introducing us to the primary characters and setting up Tóth’s complicated relationship with the Van Burens, the second half reveals the entire thrust of the picture: Things are not what they seem.
This is essentially a film of construction and deconstruction, which builds on foundational myths and then picks them apart in violent fashion by the end. A shocking act some three hours into the film turns the narrative on its head and casts a dark pall over everything that came before it. Tóth undergoes a stunning transformation from cautiously optimistic to frustrated and disillusioned by the new world he perhaps misjudged. And Van Buren reveals himself as a Jekyll and Hyde figure surrounded by sycophants and functionaries.
“The Brutalist” was suspiciously late to receive its R rating from the MPA, prompting speculation among some film obsessives that the movie’s graphic sexual content might have earned it an NC-17. As a source of both power and pleasure, sex is a central element and driving force of “The Brutalist.” Corbet, demonstrating a European sensibility, presents sex as a narrative tool, as a weapon and a release. In the opening minutes of the film, we hear that Erzsébet has shielded Tóth’s niece Zsófia from the “unwanted advances” of soldiers in Europe. When Tóth arrives in New York, he immediately visits a brothel. Van Buren’s son, who Tóth calls “a snake,” makes crude remarks about the mute Zsófia and then takes her into the woods for sex. And Van Buren displays his predatory nature through a disturbing sexual act late in the film.
While László Tóth is a fictional architect, his name is very much real. A geologist by trade, the real-life Laszlo Toth came from Hungary but later settled in Australia before moving to Rome in the early 1970s. A messiah claimant, he publicly declared himself as Jesus and developed a reputation in Rome as “a local character of sorts.” In 1972, the 33-year-old Toth entered St. Peter’s Basilica and, screaming “I am Jesus Christ,” bludgeoned Michelangelo’s “Pietà” with a hammer before being subdued by Vatican security. The Virgin Mary’s left arm was broken into pieces and initial reports noted “grave damage” to the 15-century sculpture. Considered insane, Toth was institutionalized and later released; it is unclear if he is alive today.
This odd incident is never mentioned in “The Brutalist,” and yet its protagonist bears the assailant’s name and national origin. Why would Corbet and his co-writer Mona Fastvold name their fictional Tóth, an architect, after someone known primarily for destruction? Is he their hammer to the American Dream? Or do they intend him as a Christ figure, a migrant who finds himself cheated and abused by people who claim to be his friends? Is Tóth’s experience a kind of crucifixion? Theories abound.
“The Brutalist” is the rare film that balances its shoot-for-the-stars scope with the personal intimacy of a chamber drama. Brody, through his immense talent, never shrinks from view even among the towering structures he creates. He fills the screen while the ambitions of the ruling class loom over him. Welcome to America.
“The Brutalist” premieres Dec. 20 in New York and Los Angeles ahead of a wide release next month.
