34/12
Filming took place in Budapest, Hungary and Carrara, Italy
Narrative
When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are forever changed by a mysterious and wealthy client. Filming took a total of 34 days between March 16 and May 5, 2023. Close up: Why do we need a film festival in Venice?
Brutalist is full of surprises
(2024). The characters aren’t what you expect – not in the way that Scooby Doo has an ending, but in the more subtle, gradual ways that real people reveal themselves – unfolding over time, in a new context, or when forced by circumstance. Here the situation is a post-war horror.
What is the lesson?
Adrien Brody’s Laszlo, a Jewish architect who escaped the clutches of a bloody Europe, enters the welcoming arms of America—or is confronted by it—in a frenetic opening sequence that evokes the literal birth of the Statue of Liberty. His path becomes a path of constantly passing through various life horrors: existential, professional, family, intimate – he never takes his eyes off the prize of great success and never assesses the value of this prize at the beginning. Is it a shameful realization that his success was born not in spite of the trauma, but because of it?
Do we owe abuse?
To the forces of culture, country, power and those who wield it in building our brutal legacies (and homelands)? Are our lives more meaningful than gasoline that burns on the way to some place? The movie is charming, looks cool, and isn’t boring (did you hear it’s long?).
But there is no novel
It appears to me to be based on an old novel – a mystery tome that I’d like to dig up because of some of the details the movie refuses to share. This aging man’s search for meaning becomes ours. And any greater understanding of the arrival of Lazslo, his families' machinations, his landscape and rootlessness, for better or for worse, is up to us to create.
