In a remarkable performance rightfully nominated for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards, Adrien Brody carries the monumental weight and grandeur of The Brutalist, a three-and-a-half-hour epic about immigration, the clash between art and commerce, and the decay of the American dream. Playing the brilliant Hungarian architect, László Tóth, Brody must convey the humility of a post-war immigrant fleeing for refuge and prosperity, the hubris of an artist with an unwavering vision, and the trauma of a helpless servant who succumbs to substance abuse. Through director Brady Corbet‘s methodical pacing and weighty thematic meditations, László guides the audience through its dysphoric view of capitalism. After a noisy but divisive second half, The Brutalist crescendos to an utterly bizarre ending that puts its protagonist on the sidelines. Why is László’s arc cut short? Corbet argues that the dismissal of artistic voices speaks to the nature of art in a commercial apparatus.
‘The Brutalist’s Epilogue Skips Over a Huge Section of László Tóth’s Life
Despite its epic scope, marked by its lengthy runtime, VistaVision photography, booming score, and intermission, The Brutalist is fairly minimalist in its narrative construction. The film, which received 10 Academy Award nominations, follows László rebuilding his legacy in post-war America with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), as he is commissioned by a wealthy entrepreneur, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), to build a center for the arts. Where most audiences have raved about the virtuosic and magnitude of the first half, which tracks László’s rise from a struggling immigrant to an empowered visionary, the second half chronicles László’s reckoning with his Jewish faith, substance abuse, and fallout from the abuse at the hand of his benefactor, and is far more strange and unsettling.
With a second half full of unpredictable turns and blunt expressions of power and self-destruction, The Brutalist teased an explosive ending. If the post-intermission section was too pointed with its themes, Corbet made up for it with this ambiguous epilogue that still has cinephiles debating its meaning. After Erzsébet confronts Harrison for raping her husband, leading to his elliptical fate, the film jumps over 20 years to 1980, skipping over what transpired for László, to a retrospective of his work in Venice, introduced by the architect’s niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy/Ariane Labed). The exhibition shows the Van Buren community center fully completed, with Zsófia outlining that the building symbolized Holocaust concentration camps to help survivors process trauma. “No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey,” she says, as her aging uncle watches his work become codified for the public.
Brady Corbet Reflects the Artistic Process in the Epilogue of ‘The Brutalist’
Corbet boldly undercuts any notion of a traditional conclusion to László’s arc by skipping over a formative moment in his life. We see his passion for architecture and exacting craft throughout the film, so the moment he finally completes the building would’ve been the ultimate triumph. Rather than a deeply reflective look at László’s life, The Brutalist abruptly ends with a jarring foot-tapping disco song playing over the credits. Between the deliberately off-kilter song selection, and the decision to have a character who was mute throughout the film give the closing words to this American epic, Corbet appears to be gleefully trolling us.
Corbet’s choice to gloss over the subsequent decades of László’s life was not because they were inconsequential or dull. If anything, the omission of the back half of his life merely expedites the corrosion of his soul and identity, as the traumatic events during this section cause him to lose his identity, which leads to Erzsébet imploring him to move to Jerusalem, a nation that will accept his faith. Perhaps to László’s wishes, who admires that his art in Hungary survived through the destruction caused by warfare, his architecture came to define his life. Adhering to Zsófia’s statement, László’s journey, the artistic process leading up to the destination, becomes irrelevant.
Throughout The Brutalist‘s press tour and awards campaign, Corbet has candidly discussed his struggles attaining creative autonomy and financial backing for his ambitious film. It’s no secret that the film mirrors the arduous process for filmmakers to control their creative vision amid influence from financiers and distributors. László being pushed to the side in the finale is a poignant reflection of the disposable nature of the artist in the public eye. While his work is being honored in Venice, the adult Zsófia champions the finished building to further her own religious and political causes, showing little interest in the journey that led to this destination. Furthermore, art, when stripped from its original creator, becomes cheapened and misinterpreted, as seen with the film’s sudden change to low-resolution video and the concluding pop song.
The explosive but controversial second half of The Brutalist shattered all narrative expectations, capped off by an epilogue bound for endless analysis and speculation for years to come. Brady Corbet can only sit and watch as we all try to interpret the meaning of his destination.
The Brutalist
- Release Date
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December 20, 2024
- Runtime
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215 Minutes
- Director
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Brady Corbet
- Writers
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Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
