Don’t let the most recent wave of hype fool you: Brady Corbet’s newest epic historical drama is what Mao would call a paper tiger. It may appear weighty with its 3hr35min runtime, or lofty in its thematic aspirations of loss and immigration and war; but, really, this film would crumple and peel at the sound of rain. It's centered around the brilliant architect László Tóth as he survives the Holocaust, bears the brunt of manual labor in the US and soon rises to the heights of society with the help of a wealthy benefactor. What’s funny is, I think we were supposed to feel something for this character, but, like everyone else in the film, he’s so under-explored I can’t help but feel some strange combination of angry for my wasted time and sad for the state of my beloved artform. There’s also the state of Israel—I know, we’ll get to it.
Despite the title of the film, and despite him obviously being its major protagonist, I feel as though László gets somewhat lost here. Perhaps that’s because we know so little about him. Sure, he’s a man of few words, but those are practically a staple presence onscreen by this point. It’s more to do with how close Corbet lets audiences feel to the main character. We get so little of his background or his psycho-emotional landscape that Adrien Brody’s stoic, sculpted face almost becomes a screen against which any number of cultural and society anxieties may be projected. We see him bearing xenophobia and antisemitism in his newfound homeland, but I don’t think Corbet really engages with how that shapes the way someone moves through the world. In a film full of robust dialogue, I find its silences much more interesting, those silences being anything regarding its central themes. Though we certainly see the aforementioned motifs of loss, immigration and war, I don’t think these themes are really thoughtfully engaged with. I don’t see the director wrestling with those themes to say anything through the images onscreen. Indeed, I can sense the hollow core of this film through its overly-reliant use of archetypes.
Tóth’s benefactor, Harrison Lee Van Buren, for instance, is the most stereotypical villain you’ve ever see. He might as well twirl his mustache each time he’s onscreen. I’m not saying Guy Pearce didn’t have fun, but I am saying it was all a bit ham-fisted and not particularly well done. But if the evil wealthy man wasn’t an obvious enough antagonist, Corbet throws in a rape scene just for good measure (introducing the theme of sexual assault which, too, goes unexplored until the most eyeroll inducing confrontation scene you’ve ever seen). We certainly get nods to how this horrific incident affects László and how he moves through the world, but we don’t see his process in coming out of that. It’s as though one day someone’s snapped the lights on. This isn’t exactly Brody’s fault. Though I’ve seen him play a WW2 refugee to much more powerful effect in films like 2002’s The Pianist, I actually think Brody embodied László with great commitment and beauty. I even think Felicity Jones and Joe Alwyn did great in their supportive roles, if not a bit flat. It gets a bit ham-fisted at times, but I’d blame the script more than the actors.
Despite everything lacking on the conceptual level, there was an interesting use of music! Daniel Blumberg’s music constantly clashed with the image, and from that contrast a new emotional response to the movie was created. Playing a discordant string section over the view from a bus window as a man reads a letter from his wife who’s lost in a warzone can add an entirely new level of emotion to the viewing experience, and I appreciated how the director, composer and sound designer seemed to collaborate on that end. Lol Crawley also did a great job as the cinematographer here. I think the choice to shoot on real Kodak film gave the image a kind of graininess that evokes both memory and the past, providing another way in which to immerse viewers in the particular time and place the great set design of this movie is trying to replicate. It’s a pity, then, that after so much work, the film ends with László and his wife, tired of facing anti-immigrant sentiments in their new country, fleeing to Israel where they, ostensibly, live happily ever after. This is where I have a lot to say about this film and the context in which I was shown it.
It’s one thing to have this couple relocate. But to have them relocate after facing so much pain and struggle in the US, only to end with an epilogue where his family celebrates his achievements, makes it seem, within the logic of the film, as if moving to Israel was, and therefore still is, a viable option to these people. This is where the film goes from bad to dangerous. I heard people behind me in the theater talking about how ‘timely’ and ‘important’ this movie was, but the thing is, I struggle to find what exactly it was trying to say. America hates Jews, flee to Israel so that you can be persecutor instead of persecuted? It’s in these moments where the importance of message comes into play that the film really starts to crumple and rip. At best, it’s lazy, unthoughtful. At worst, it’s Zionist propaganda, a claim which wouldn’t feel too out of place considering the New York Film Festival has recently come under fire for Zionist funding, gentrification and more, making this a rather ironic choice to close out opening night of the Festival. This brings me to the New York Counter Film Festival which was just launched. Seeking to show both original films as well as movies they intended to poach directly from NYFF, you can keep up with all updates via their Instagram. They’re currently asking all critics to cancel their coverage and instead cover NYCFF. I will have left NYC by the time NYCFF starts, but if you’re having to choose between watching something there vs watching The Brutalist, I’d say that’s hardly a choice.
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