Venice Dispatch – The Brutalist

There it is. On day 5 of the 81st Venice Film Festival, the competition has yielded its first masterpiece in the form of Brady Corbet’s third feature The Brutalist. Monumental in every sense of the word, it’s not just the work of a director at the peak of his powers, but probably the most damning reckoning of the myth of America since There Will Be Blood.

The 215-min epic centers on László (Adrien Brody), a Jewish-Hungarian architect who fled post-WWII Europe and landed in Philadelphia with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), while his wife Erzsébet (Fecility Jones) is stuck in immigration hell. Not long after he started working for Attila at his furniture shop, the two are commissioned by the heir of the Van Buren family Harry (Joe Alwyn) to remodel the study of his father Harrison (Guy Pearce). Thus begins the tumultuous relationship between a visionary artist and a dangerously unpredictable, all-American businessman.

There’s a strong literary or even operatic quality to the film, which is divided into an overture, two main parts (with a 15-min intermission in between) and an epilogue. In grand, sweeping strokes, it tackles big questions of good and evil by depicting the decades-spanning journey of a man seeking to start anew in the land of the free. The first half of the story (up until the end of part 1 ”The Enigma of Arrival”) is momentous and hopeful. We meet László literally in the dark, as he stumbles through the bowels of a ship to emerge into sunlight, greeted by the Statue of Liberty herself. Things look promising when he settles down with Attila and lands the gig with the Van Buren family. He gives the old-fashioned study a stunning modernist makeover but his efforts initially go unrewarded. It’s not until Harrison Van Buren receives media attention thanks to the groundbreaking design of his new study that László’s luck takes a turn. The tycoon offers him the chance to build a giant community center and helps expedite his wife’s journey out of Europe.

When the 15-min countdown for intermission starts on screen (with score), László is in a good place. He’s found a powerful patron who appreciates his talents. He’s about to realize his vision on the biggest canvas possible and the prospect of reuniting with his wife is becoming real. But then in part 2 of the film, ominously titled „The Hard Core of Beauty“, America shows its ugly side and László is forced to wake up from his dreams of paradise.

Corbet made it known that King Vidor‘s Fountainhead was an inspiration for the film, and one can clearly see the parallels. Like in that 1949 film, an aspiring architect with ideas ahead of his times faces the choice between defending his personal/artistic integrity and making compromises in order to survive. The Brutalist goes further to investigate the cultural environement that forced such dilemmas. Is the entrepreneur financing costly architectural projects really doing this out of an appreciation for the arts? If race isn’t an issue and all have a right to the American dream, how come Attila decided to change both his name and his faith when he immigrated? The film takes a closer look at the quintessential American story and what it finds is not pretty.

Watching the film, the word that kept popping in my head is majestic. There’s such a sense of scale and timeless grandeur to everything you see and hear. Shooting on film, DP Lol Crawley produced striking, sublimely beautiful images that reflect the protagonist’s brutalist aesthetics and evoke his shifting emotional state. At one point, László is asked the simple question “Why architecture?”. From his answer you realize there’s so much more to his craft than practicality and style, it’s a philosophy. The same can be said about Crawley’s cinematography, you can tell so much thought went into the creation of each frame. This applies also to the score composed by Daniel Blumberg. From the pressing, almost violent orchestral music from the overture on, sound plays a pivotal part in conveying the ever-changing tones of the film. There are long stretches of celestial solo piano that capture the feelings of joy and optimism. There are also menacing, pretty terrifying French horn compositions which reveal and underscore the darkness at the core of the story.

The ensemble cast is exceptional, led by Brody in his juiciest role since The Pianist. His performance as László not only communicates the up’s and down’s the character goes through, it personifies the very essence of an idealistic immigrant. As Harrison Van Buren, Pearce is a force of nature. Recalling at times Daniel Plainview, one of Daniel Day-Lewis’ unforgettable creations, he’s charismatic, seductive, sinister all at the same time. An absolute knock-out. In more limited roles, Nivola and Alwyn are also great, each bringing a chilling character arc to life as the men they play turn out to be not what they seem. Jones doesn’t have that much of an arc to work with, but there’s a scene towards the end where she confronts the powers that be and exposes the lies they tell themselves that’s spine-tinglingly good.

After The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, Corbet has already established himself as a highly intelligent filmmaker with remarkable technical command. But nothing could have prepared us for The Brutalist, a film so layered in meaning, staggering in craftsmanship and – despite its length and book-like structure – so magically uncluttered, you feel like you’re watching a classic. A colossal achievement and the first sure-fire contender for the Golden Lion.