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The Brutalist, telling the story of immigrants chasing the “American dream” through the fictional character of Holocaust survivor and architect László Tóth, who emigrated to the United States, was screened at the Venice International Film Festival. The grandiose three-and-a-half-hour historical drama was met with long minutes of standing ovations from the audience, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film was directed by Brady Corbet, who is best known as an actor and has worked with such filmmakers as Michael Haneke (Funny Games) and Lars von Trier (Melancholia).
The lead role is played by Adrien Brody, an actor of Hungarian descent, who said he felt an “instant kinship and understanding” for his character, who he drew from his own mother’s life story.
Brody’s mother, Sylvia Plachy, is a photographer who fled to the United States after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, where she started a new life and became an established artist.
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Brochy’s wife, Elizabeth, is played by Felicity Jones, but the film also stars Guy Pearce, Isaach de Bankolé and Joe Alwyn, as well as Hungarian actors in small roles. Dávid Jancsó, son of Miklós Jancsó, who has previously worked on films such as Delta, White God and Pieces of a Woman, was responsible for the editing.
The film follows the story of László Tóth, a Hungarian architect of Jewish descent who emigrates from Rákosi-era Hungary to the United States to live the “American dream.” (Mátyás Rákosi was the Communist ruler of Hungary from 1945 to 1956). Initially forced to work in squalor, he soon receives an assignment from a mysterious and wealthy client, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), that will change his life forever.
The Brutalist took more than seven years to make and was shot on 70mm film using analogue techniques, which reportedly required the makers to ship 26 reels of 136 kilograms of film to Italy.
Loudest, wildest and longest standing ovation (12+minutes!!!) I’ve experienced thus far at #Venezia81 for filmmaker Brady Corbet and his stars Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird for their bold The Brutalist (with… pic.twitter.com/s49UgpM36d
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) September 1, 2024
The Hollywood Reporter gave a rave review of the film, calling it “a monumental symphony of the immigrant experience”.
Via The Hollywood Reporter; Featured image via Pexels