The Brutalist: An intimate epic of vast ambitions, thorny ideas and deeply felt humanity

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist has been one of my most anticipated films ever, for many reasons.

At a whopping 215 minutes (including a built-in 15-minute intermission), it represents an attempt to return to the old-school ways of cinema-going. If you went to see any of the classic epics like Ben Hur or The Sound of Music when they were first released, you’d make a commitment to go and see these huge movies on the biggest screens and spend all afternoon or evening doing so. The Brutalist demands such commitment in a way I have not seen a modern film ask for. It also employs a specific visual look of the 1950s, the period the majority of the film takes place. The film is shot using an old cinematographic process called VistaVision, which has not been used since 1961, rendering incredible clarity across wide vistas with stunning colours. I was lucky enough to see the film in 70mm at one of the few cinemas in the UK showing it in that format, and it was one of the most stunning film presentations I’ve ever seen. A second watch in IMAX emphasised the overwhelming grandeur of many of the images Corbet has conjured. 

It is a towering epic about many things: immigration, assimilation, xenophobia, America, the American dream, art, artists, time, ambition, and power.

Everything about The Brutalist is a harkening to the yesteryears of cinema, yet it is also a strikingly modern and audacious film. Made for less than $10 million, it is an astonishing achievement in modern indie filmmaking, one that carries the gravitas and beauty of the most expensive Hollywood spectacles whilst daring to challenge its audience with a confrontational, spiky narrative. It is a towering epic about many things: immigration, assimilation, xenophobia, America, the American dream, art, artists, time, ambition, and power. It is chock full of such ideas, yet it never collapses under the pressure of its overwhelming ambitions. If its attempts to capture the feeling of the classical Hollywood epics on such a meagre budget wasn’t enough to convince you of its ambition, then its push into much darker and thornier dramatic territory in the second half surely is.  

The opening 10-minute overture up until the opening credits is one of the most astonishing sequences I’ve seen in recent cinema, and worth the price of admission alone.

 

It’s hard to describe the film succinctly because of how overflowing and all-encompassing its emotional pull seems. On the surface, it is the story of László Toth, a Hungarian Jewish architect played by Adrien Brody who immigrates to America in 1947 in hopes of a better life after Eastern Europe is ravaged by World War 2 and the Holocaust. The second shot of the film is an astonishing lengthy tracking shot following Toth from the bowels of a ship through hordes of people up into New York Harbour, where we see him and a companion beyond elated to arrive in this new land. The shot ends with the camera tilting a full 180 degrees to show an upside-down Statue of Liberty, an early indicator of how the film is not going to show us the America we know. Things aren’t quite right here. This shot is the first real sign of how ambitious the film is going to be, moving from panic to utter goosebump-inducing joy in the span of what can only be a couple of minutes. The opening 10-minute overture up until the opening credits is one of the most astonishing sequences I’ve seen in recent cinema, and worth the price of admission alone.  

An artist desperately seeking to express himself and his pain through his work, yet constantly bullied and manipulated by the whims of his financiers and a country that pretends to want him but is rotten to its core.

 

Toth arrives in Pennsylvania to live with his cousin temporarily, and a winding series of events leads him into the circle of wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren, played by Guy Pearce, who comes to ask Toth to build him a mighty structure that will stand the test of time. From then on, Toth’s vast journey unfolds in ways you will not expect. Brody’s face describes this journey in such affecting detail that he delivers what is likely to be one of the defining performances of the 2020s: an artist desperately seeking to express himself and his pain through his work, yet constantly bullied and manipulated by the whims of his financiers and a country that pretends to want him but is rotten to its core. Brody is so compelling that some of the most powerful moments in the film are its most intimate when we are left to simply observe Toth alongside Daniel Blumberg’s awe-inspiring musical score.  

We see the America of the time, but also of now, for what it is: a country that draws a myth of capitalist hope but crushes everyone who buys into such a dream.

Another aspect of what makes the film so striking is the balance it draws between the intimate and the epic. The runtime and vastness of scope make the film feel truly huge, but it is fundamentally a very focused character drama about an artist and the world around him. This is evident in Blumberg’s music which switches on a dime from grand, imposing and exciting brass-heavy orchestral pieces to lyrical, lilting piano solos. In following Toth, we see the America of the time, but also of now, for what it is: a country that draws a myth of capitalist hope but crushes everyone who buys into such a dream. Van Buren’s interactions with Toth paint him as a man enamoured with Toth’s artistic drive, for he is someone who lacks such expressive capabilities. Pearce portrays him on a knife’s edge of uncertainty, someone who can change the tone in an instant and bring the world crashing down with him if he wants. He’s a mysterious yet simple figure, and Corbet deliberately maintains our uncertainty towards him for much of the film.

The post-intermission second half of the film sees it venture into darker territory, as the truth of the American dream rears its ugly head. This is also where Felicity Jones enters the film as Toth’s wife, Erzsébet, which creates a whole new set of challenges for Toth as he navigates his new life and his grand project alongside the cutting intelligence of the woman he has missed for so long, who sees this strange new land more clearly than he can. The interplay between the core trio is always fascinating, and it all funnels into a truly surprising ending that no one could predict.  The ending is a perfect reflection of the boldness of Corbet’s film.

After everything we’ve been through, his epilogue totally throws us off and asks us to question what we’ve been told. On first viewing the ending so surprised me that took me a while to settle down and wrap my head around it. On second viewing, it was evident how the ending relates to and is woven through the rest of the film, and it felt like the perfect way to end such a challenging and unique odyssey. The film moves impressively fast too. The intermission definitely helps, but you’ll be surprised how quickly the film reaches the epilogue, so don’t let the runtime scare you off from seeing it. 

The struggles of artists in a world where people refuse to give them the free will to express themselves.

 

The Brutalist has lots to say about lots of ideas. If the breadth of its reach means it does not fully probe each of its concepts as much as I would like it to, there is so much for every viewer to latch onto. The second half especially moves in my mind a little too quickly through the events of Toth’s life compared to the miraculously considered pacing of the first half, leaving you almost out of breath as you try to keep up with everything it has to say. As someone who has been enamoured with cinema since he was four years old, I found myself on the first watch very drawn to what this had to say about the way we receive art, Toth as an artist, and the struggles of artists in a world where people refuse to give them the free will to express themselves. Add to this Toth’s status as a foreign person and his freedom of expression is even more limited, subtly, and later more aggressively, undermined in upsetting ways. On a rewatch I found myself very focused on the film’s discussion of the impossibility of assimilation, especially in a country as hellbent on capitalist ideals of being at the top of the ladder. Everything Toth does is never enough to earn the respect of his fellow Americans. His relationship with Van Buren is especially challenging, as Buren’s underlying xenophobia and willingness to assert his power serve as a reminder of the threats posed by a certain deeply xenophobic figure now running America itself.  

The destination is not what you will expect or perhaps want, but it is deeply rewarding.

 

In a key line, the film tells us ‘it is the destination, not the journey’, and the ending may leave you questioning that idea in truly fascinating ways. With so much to discuss, it is impossible to distil every thought it raises into a single review. However, that is precisely what is so magical about the extraordinary journeys film can take us on. We get to enter into different times, different worlds and different people, and see the world through new eyes. The Brutalist puts you firmly into Toth’s world in a way that is truly awe-inspiring, with so much food for thought that makes it ripe for revisiting. I would personally recommend leaving a good chunk of time between rewatches as there is so much to reflect on that my second watch just three days after the first didn’t feel quite so grand as that opening weekend sold out 70mm show. That is hardly the film’s fault though, for there is so much to chew on that I couldn’t help but come running back to it so quickly. It is a commitment, but one that does not get asked of us as audiences much anymore, making it deeply engaging and powerful for having committed to it. The journey of watching the film and trying to take it all in is really special, uniquely so in today’s cinematic landscape. The destination is not what you will expect or perhaps want, but it is deeply rewarding, and I haven’t seen anything as reverential to cinema’s past that is simultaneously so uniquely dark, mean and truthful. 

Nominated for 10 Oscars, it is truly deserving of all the praise it has received. It is an epic like no other recent film, with stratospheric ambitions that it strives to fulfill. 

Go see its majesty for yourself.