14/14
Featured on The 7PM Project: Episode from December 10, 2024 (2024)
When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet fled post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are forever changed by a mysterious, wealthy client. Filming took place over a total of 34 days between March 16 and May 5, 2023. It was shot in Budapest, Hungary and Carrara, Italy. Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr.: When dogs get sick, they often bite the hand of those who fed them – until someone mercifully euthanizes them. Raw and daring, “Brutalism” was the name given to a style of modern architecture that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s.
Its sharp angles were formed from humble materials like rebar and concrete
Light and shadow danced dramatically across its craggy walls and through its bold windows. In a sense, “The Brutalist” — nominated for numerous Golden Globes, including Best Drama — is also a work of architecture. If you can overlook the title and its three-and-a-half-hour running time, it offers epic visions of immigrant aspirations and the American dream (for and against) through a highly stylized lens. Best Actor nominee Adrien Brody gives a penetrating, courageous performance as László Toth, a brilliant Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the carnage of World War II in his homeland and arrives at the feet of the Statue of Liberty in hopes of starting over. The Statue of Liberty is upside down on the poster because that is how it first appears to immigrants emerging from the third-class holds of steamships.
It will change the fate of both men
László’s odyssey leads to the boundless optimism of postwar Philadelphia. His wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones, another Globe nominee), will follow him several years later with their niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy). Meanwhile, the celebrated creator in his own country is relegated to a humble existence in his new homeland. He eats in soup kitchens, sleeps in hostels, shovels coal to earn a living. His path crosses with ultra-rich businessman Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr.
Guy Pierce earns the film’s third Globe nomination with perhaps the finest performance of his career
Urbane and handsome, the quintessential WASP patrician, Harrison’s mellifluous voice and carefully chosen words mark a striking contrast to László’s still-strange foreignness. Although their first meeting is disastrous, Van Buren soon admits not only admiration but envy for the immigrant’s genius, and recruits him to create a monumental cultural center and memorial in memory of his late mother. The project will unite them for years, as the monolithic structure slowly rises on a hill on the Van Buren estate. Theirs is a union of opposites, each man possessed of a strong will and an indomitable ego. Their relationship, and that of their families, too, evolves from master and hired help to the bonds of collaborators to the intimacy of brothers — and then back again.
The film’s soundtrack is also a work of art in its own right
Director and co-writer Brady Corbet seems to share his characters’ great confidence in their own abilities. At 36, his evolution from actor to A-list filmmaker invites comparisons to a young Orson Welles’ arrival in Hollywood with the groundbreaking “Citizen Kane.” Considering that “The Brutalist”‘s budget was less than $10 million, its scale and scope — not to mention its singular sense of style — are astonishing miracles. Along with Lol Crawley’s dazzling cinematography, Brady incorporates historical and industrial imagery of the period into the production design. It features perfectly selected songs in its montage of historical radio broadcasts, advertisements and ambient noises. Meditating on the price — and rewards — of genius, on an even deeper level, “The Brutalist” shows the price of assimilation.