I just saw The Brutalist yesterday at my local cinema and I did enjoy the film. However one of the most notable criticisms of this film is it is 3hrs 30 minutes which makes it a significantly longer film than your average one. There was however an intermission of 15 minutes in which I got a drink of orange juice from the bar (my local cinema has a bar).

The film starts off strongly with Adrien Brody (from the Pianist) on a ship full of people and he makes his way to the shop of the ship and glimpses the Statue of Liberty in full view and just then the music comes on in all its splendour.

Brody plays a Jewish architect from Hungary who is seeking to achieve the ‘American Dream’ by immigrating there in the 1950s to escape the various totalitarian regimes in Europe.

Brody starts off in New York very briefly but then decides to move to Philadelphia where his cousin stays. The cousin runs a furniture business with his catholic wife. The two cousins get work from a wealthy WASP (white anglo saxon protestant) (Guy Pearce) to build a library in a windowed room in his country mansion. However after the job is done Guy Pearce refuses to pay and Brody’s cousin blames Brody and also accuses him of making a pass at his wife. Brody is now homeless in Philadelphia. He gets work on a construction site where Guy Pearce once again approaches him and this time pays him for the first job but also asks him to come and work for him again. This time Guy Pearce wants to build something much bigger with funding from the local Mayor’s department, his own businesses and from various other sources. The construction of this building seems to be a sort of symbol of the film, it’s built on a hill and when the sun strikes noon the symbol of the cross is made by the shadow on the courtyard. The film seems to be called the Brutalist I guess because of Brody’s style of architecture. I guessed this myself, but I also Googled it and that does seem to be correct.

Guy Pearce is an out and out villain who cuts corners, seems to engage in corruption and even rapes Brody late on in the film. Brody himself, is a sort of flawed hero, he constantly smokes cigarettes and injects heroin in his free time. Eventually Brody’s wife manages to join him and his niece Sofia. It is implied that Pearce’s son ‘Harry’ also coerces Sofia into having sex with him in the woods.

I’m hesitant to try to put a definition to such an abstract piece of art (the film). The footage of the construction of the Van Buren building on the hill in Pennsylvania is beautiful. I’m reluctant to say, but if pressed, it seems to film refers to the corruption of the American Dream. The WASP establishment are xenophobic and racist towards Brody and his African American friend, his wife and his niece Sofia. Its even more sinister than that with both Brody (and its sort of implied about Sofia) getting raped by Pearce and his son ‘Harry.’ My own interpretation is that such behaviour refers to Biblical texts such as that of Sodom when the mob of people try to rape the angel newcomers. Of course, in the Biblical story, God eventually destroys the city for its corruption and wickedness. The WASPs were once seen as the chosen people, religious people who wanted to start something fresh in the New World (the America’s). They set out on the Mayflower ship from England in the 1600s to escape the tyranny of Europe. They were once the immigrants but now they are the gatekeepers and the oppressors. However in the Brutalist the story is reversed. When Brody finally gets his appreciation at the end it is in Venice at an award ceremony with Sofia doing the talking. It is the USA that is the place of corruption.

In terms of my favourite part of this film, I would say the soundtrack is pretty great (on the big screen) but especially Brody’s acting is first class. He does the Eastern European accent well and does a good job portraying the various hardships but Brody is also incredibly clever and resourceful like many immigrants in the UK today.