The Brutalist

The Brutalist
The Brutalist

The Brutalist is nothing but a remarkable cinematic piece with impressive scenes throughout its almost four hour run. The saga of a Jewish-Hungarian architect and his odyssey as an immigrant in the USA after World War II is one that can be described as an epic film directed and co written by Brady Corbet. Adrien Brody gave in a brilliant leading role which unfortunately has him vying for the best male actor awards for some time. The story of this film of an intricacies of moving out from the destructible seeks of the Holocaust only to fall into the unyielding embrace of a rich sponsor is a case of troubled artistry. The screen is on fire with beautiful heart wrenching poems and images that depict the best and worst of humankind.

The Oxford Dictionary also notes that brutalism is a 1960 dystopias. Brave New World ‘ :a term in architecture espoused mainly in the 50-60’s which is predominated by big concrete blocks, and steel paid and and often who seems quite ugly and offPutting’. The aesthetics of these buildings is confined to Brutalism. There are no soft curves, no decorative features and no comforts of home. There can be a cool and eerie elegance that emerges from abrupt angular forms, boxes, and awkward sight lines that do not jump out at you on a first look. It can be stated regrettably that, such a. frame can only be fully understood only through experience and absorption. The first look upon seeing this will not necessarily translate into how it was meant to be portrayed.

Corbet is quite the leading man in films like Thirteen, Funny Games, or Martha Marcy May Marlene, and direct films like — The Childhood of a Leader — or Vox Lux. In constructing his deeply absorbing lead character, he tends to adopt this ideation. Therefore we Meet László Tóth (Brody) from a rather skewed view inside the belly of a ship full of starving immigrants. He lifts his head to the statue of Liberty, which is ironically, upside down. It is a beacon of hope; it is a picture of freedom and of hopelessness. He outlived the Nazi concentration camps, but never been able to find his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) since their parting ways in Budapest many years ago.

László is so happy when he finally meets his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) in Philadelphia that he bursts into tears. It is one of the most heartbreaking moments when men succumb to emotions and embrace after what seems to be ages of separation. There is an absolute fountain of tears and mucus all over them. No matter how bad the situation is at the moment, one can always look forward to the future when these people are alive and together again. Attila had been married to a goy and had a small shop of repairing furniture. What comes next brings a smile to László’s mouth. The best name that Attila in America could come up with “Miller”.

László is totally overwhelmed by ardent Audrey, the blonde wife of Attila who also is the shock convert. For her sake, he embraced the Catholic faith. Much as László thanks Audrey for the small cot in the storeroom, he is rather wishful. There is not much they could offer. Attila cannot hold his horses in waiting for László to look for materia and start designing the new furniture. Before the war, he was a recognizable architect around Europe.

Attila brings László to one of his prominent clients, a son of rich industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) – Harry (Joe Alwyn). Harry wants to redecorate and present his father’s most cherished room, a library. The deadline is imminent as it has to be a surprise project and is to be completed in stealth before Harrison comes back to their palatial home.

The structure of the brutalist has two acts with a fifteen minutebooken intermission. The secondary division is made of volume segmented into chapters each of which comes with its own heading relating to what is to follow. Irrespective of the winding plot of the novel where every scenario has been set about thirty years, in sequential order, the first part serves as an expository introduction, well, preparation if you prefer, to the really jaw-dropping scenes in the latter half.

Corbet insists that by the time he casts his more into the storm, they should have a good grasp of his characters. This is equally enhanced through different means. For instance, even though Erzsébet and Zsófia have not been seen even once by the reader till the second section, the reader gets to know quite a lot about them by ‘post’ from László. They appear to be haughty and indifferent. The movie focuses on the American ideal and what costs need to be made to come close to achieving it.

The Brutalist shrinks down another level and concerns itself with the grotesque and glorious subject of idol worshipping reckless pleasure through the act of sex and using drugs. László relies on the pleasures of sex and heroin as a way out of overpowering stress, both mentally and physically. He walks around with emotional scars that speak of a tortured past. Getting high on the lust for sex with prostitutes in the deliria of drug fuelled angry desire is as therapeutic as it is medical claustrophobia. These trends surface across the supporting characters, for they too indulge and perform the most simple of bodily activities. That will be a jaw dropping moment. All I can say is. That is plain shocking, rather understatement.

The reasons happen to be several, some of them quite basic and common, and in one instance very curious. In typically upright, ‘calculated’ approaches to storytelling, the audience’s involvement is assumed rather than desired. There are certain qualities of this film that can be attributed to the subject matter or the genre. Such engraved ones tend to rub us the wrong ways by precisely embodying exaggeration and unrelenting bravado which demolishes much of how professionals approach content. The cost of the film ‘The Brutalist’ is $6 million, to which Eugene Corbet humorously argues and speaks of breaking records with Winston Peters, where he will reportedly cost approximately $2 million. The Brutalist cannot be classified as some common Oscar bait intended to please the audience with the same easy-to-follow themes of Holocaust and war. This has nothing to do with The Pianist which also stars Brody and concerning which this writer ventures to predict that he will win an Oscar again, for Best Actor. Simply exceptional Guy Pearce. More likely, he will spend next March waiting for the strained excitement to get to the Oscars not worse than Corbet and Brody. I can state without overstatements that sitting through the four hours of The Brutalist is a pleasant surprise. There is not a single dull moment in the evidence presented.

Watch Free Movies on Hurawatch

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top