The Brutalist is a three-and-a-half-hour-long film directed by Brady Corbet which follows the life journey of Jewish-Hungarian refugee Laszlo Toth (played exceptionally by Adrien Brody) who immigrates to post-World War Two America to escape the Holocaust. The movie explicitly follows Toth’s search for the American Dream through a spiritual journey, yet his pessimistic personality, evident trauma from the horrors of the Holocaust and discrimination as an immigrant prevent him from achieving fulfilment within American society.
Toth is an architect, who was critically acclaimed in Europe, whose goal is simply to survive. His career faces many ups and downs, but he eventually becomes a successful architect. The movie excels in portraying the architecture industry with realist lenses; presenting the fragility, bureaucracy, and power structures within it, showing ultimately the capitalist destruction of architecture as an art. We come to realise that there is a void in Toth that career success is unable to fill – post-traumatic pain, both emotional and physical.
We come to realise that there is a void in Toth that career success is unable to fill – post-traumatic pain, both emotional and physical.
This leads him to resort to heroin – which is sold to him on the promise of being a remedy for his injuries – creating an addiction lasting the whole movie, but, surprisingly, he never tries to kick it, it instead becomes a way of life for him. This creates within him a stagnation in which he is unable to continue his spiritual journey towards happiness, instead, he mentally and physically degenerates into a numb, empty half-person. This temporarily changes when he brings his wife, Erzsébet, back to the States from Europe, but eventually, he drags her into addiction with him. They face many challenges and many successes throughout the movie, but their addiction and exploitation as immigrants keep them from the happiness promised by the American Dream.
The end fast forwards to 1980, when Toth becomes a highly successful architect whose work is being celebrated by multitudes yet misinterpreted as a brutalist historical account of the Holocaust rather than an artistic vision. He, now elderly and enfeeble, sits in a wheelchair and observes how his artwork is presented erroneously, marking his failure to finish his spiritual journey to fulfilment, as he receives this moment that is meant to portray his success with nothing but hollowness.
He, now elderly and enfeeble, sits in a wheelchair and observes how his artwork is presented erroneously, marking his failure to finish his spiritual journey to fulfilment, as he receives this moment that is meant to portray his success with nothing but hollowness.
Adrien Brody’s performance is spectacular, and the film is worth a watch but difficult to sit through some harsh scenes.
