The Brutalist

Director: Brady Corbet

2024

3 February 2025

See

Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody) a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor emigrates to America, is separated from his wife Erszabet (Felicity Jones) and all but mute niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy), taken in by Attila (Alessandro Nivola) his cousin in Philadelphia, and employed by Industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and his family. 

Think

What does it cost to change, survive, adapt and succeed? Everything. That’s the price Laszlo has to pay to move on from the old world where he designed beautiful bauhaus buildings but was persecuted. In the new world he has to begin again from the bottom, is alone, can’t count on anyone except himself to life himself up by his bootstraps. He isn’t accepted by his new Protestant community, but they do want his talent though. 

Beginning with redesigning Harrison’s study into a library and then creating a cultural centre, Laszlo distinguishes himself by reaching for distinction. Meanwhile he struggles with self-sufficiency, trauma and addiction. He, Erszabet and Zsofia survived the Dacau concentration camp, but I’m reminded of the Nazi slogan above the gates of Auschwitz, “Arbeit Mact Frei”.

Feel

Brady Corbet’s vision is young and energetic, retelling an old story in a classic way. I saw it in a 70mm screening and was moved by the grandeur of the film, scale of the buildings and moved by the visceral scale and scope of ambition of the protagonist and director. To reference Alden’s repeated quote which made the audience laugh, “I find our conversations intellectually stimulating.” The Brutalist is an antidote to streaming simultaneous screens of content. Instead Corbet, like Christopher Nolan, goes for grand vision, with cinema as church, a collective shared experience best enjoyed communally.