In Spring (1949), King Vidor’s film based on the novel by Ayn Rand, the architect played by Gary Cooper defended the principles of economic neoliberalism already present in the original work. Both supported individualism as the only form of progress in society. Interventionism, according to them, was a scourge that made men dependent, while the true way to advance was the effort of the person without taking into account the community. This is no exception, the American economy was built on this confused and tortuous idea that unites in the same sentence the progress of a country with the simple individual triumph. An idea that was also in FortuneHernán Díaz’s work, which focuses on the early stages of capitalism. One passage in Díaz’s complex narrative puzzle confronted this capitalism with the ideals of a communist who had fled Mussolini’s fascism.
While in Fortune a kind of equidistance “neither some (the communists) nor so bad (the capitalists)” has been established, the filmmaker Brady Corbet resorts – although clearly positioning himself – to a similar confrontation in the monumental and overwhelming The Brutalist, one of those films that are destined to last over time and that after being screened at the Venice Film Festival sent shivers down the spines of the entire press with its three-and-a-half-hour epic, shot in 70 mm and VistaVision and with an intermission included. Corbet, as he also pointed out at the press conference of the event, has made a film that constitutes a modification of the entire Spring, and establishes a thread between fascism and American capitalism (one flees and ends up sunk by the other) telling the story of Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian exile who, after escaping from a concentration camp, arrives in the United States, where he fortunately leads a coup d’état that allows him to begin to develop his talent as an architect.
The Brutalist It is a slap in the face to the American dream, which shows the enthusiasm of all the migrants who arrived and how this idea of the supportive host sold for years is not so true. The protagonist, played remarkably by Adrien Brody, escapes from the concentration camp to sleep in other barracks, where precarious workers (all foreigners or blacks) are now crammed together on whose labor the thriving economy of the camp begins to develop. country.
Corbet contrasts formats and materials, introduces television news and advertisements that show the great situation of the economy and confront it with the suffering of those who work so that others can get rich. But it is not The Brutalist a book about the typical migrant worker, but prefers to focus on a person whose talent and effort should have, if meritocracy and the American dream were not a mistake, made him brilliantly successful. Here, his talent confronts the one who has money, the capricious and unleashed ego of a tycoon who shows himself to be a lover of art and architecture but who is capable of asking for a penny that falls on the ground so as not to lose a single cent.
The film, which spans from 1947 to 1980, follows the character’s journey through his rise as a creator and his struggle to create his masterpiece. It is no coincidence that this architect is a representative of Brutalism, an artistic movement linked to socialism and the creation of buildings for the community against the individualism that he sold. Spring. Nor that the character was trained at the Bauhaus (this school which is now once again attacking the extreme right as Nazism did at the time)
Despite his talent, the migrant, in order to integrate, must renounce his identity and traditions. We see it in the protagonist’s cousin, who abandons Judaism to marry a Catholic; and we see it when the woman shows off her excellent English and agrees to be called by an English version of her name. Of course, they must abandon their own language. This is the way to erase the roots as the only way to be part of it.
That The Brutalist It disrupts the symbols of the United States, it is something symbolic and even literal. The first thing the viewer sees when Brody’s character leaves the ship that takes him to his destination is the Statue of Liberty upside down. The last thing we will see before the final epilogue (which takes place in Italy and contains a final ambiguous speech that he will give to discuss), is an inverted cross. Two of the symbols of America completely distorted and modified, underlining the message. Corbet is not even afraid to err on the side of obviousness at times, and the film allows itself, surprisingly, to make a sexual metaphor as obvious as it is bestial and precise. Or to express out loud what was already in their images: “This country is rotten”, “They don’t love us”, they hear their characters say.
If in his speech he is impeccable, in his staging he is simply dazzling. The use of 70 mm is overwhelming, and the sound and musical proposal, immersive and even experimental at times, is a delight as is the exquisite photography that stops when it wants to emphasize the beauty of the buildings, with particular importance when it manages to excite. emotions. Rolling the Carrara marbles in their purest form. An overflowing film but which gives the impression that not a single minute remains, not even the intermission presided over by a photo and which cuts the film in two at the perfect moment.
The Brutalist It has everything it takes to be an unbeatable Golden Lion. By size, ambition, and even by imperfection. Because it is risky, political, and because it shows that there are still authors ready to go beyond conventions.
