by Brady Corbett The Brutalist was the talk of the Lido on Sunday, when the costume epic, seven years in the making, finally had its world premiere in the Venice Film Festival's historic Sala Grande.
The audience in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema erupted in applause at the end of the epic three-hour and 35-minute screening, giving the film a rousing 13-minute standing ovation, the best of the festival.
The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a rave review, with chief critic David Rooney describing The Brutalist as “a monumental symphony of the immigrant experience” with a “devastating” performance by Brody as Tóth.
Among the crowd that attended the premiere were spotted several personalities from the world of cinema, including actresses Julianne Moore and Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), as well as the French director and artist JR (Faces Places).
The Brutalist has all the thematic weight and intellectual rigor befitting its subject: the historical trauma and artistic vision that gave rise to the great works of mid-century American Brutalist architecture. But Colbert also gives his audience a break in the middle of the film’s alternately elegant and propulsive story. There’s a 10-minute intermission halfway through the film’s extended running time, allowing viewers to use the bathroom or pause to reflect on the work’s evolving handling of its themes.
The Brutalist chronicles the journey of Hungarian-born Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who emigrates to the United States in 1947 to live the “American Dream.” Initially forced to work hard in poverty, he soon wins a contract with a mysterious and wealthy client, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), that will change the course of the next 30 years of his life. Felicity Jones co-stars as Tóth's wife, Erzsébet, while Joe Alwyn plays the wealthy industrialist's mercurial son. Corbet and his wife, Norwegian director and actress Mona Fastvold, co-wrote the film.
“The Brutalist is closer to the fermenting ideas and dark vision of power in the director's debut film, The Childhood of a Leader compared to his more polarizing disquisition on contemporary celebrities, Vox Lux,” Rooney writes. “But it represents a huge leap in perspective from both, taking in such substantial themes as creativity and compromise, Jewish identity, architectural integrity, the immigrant experience, the arrogant isolation of privilege, and the long reach of the past.”
Corbetto and The Brutalist The cast kept things classy and conservative on the red carpet, with the director wearing a black tuxedo, alongside Fastvold in a floor-length, off-the-shoulder gown. Ivorian film legend Isaach de Bankolé, who plays Tóth’s friend Gordon, jazzed things up in a sleek black jacket with a large Angela Davis patch over smart white trousers and two-tone trainers. Raffey Cassidy, who plays Tóth’s niece Zsófia, went almost gothic in a layered black shirt and a sheer scarf that framed her face.
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist
Courtesy of the Venice Film Festival
An authorial work through and through and a triumph of directorial determination, The Brutalist It took over seven years to make, with various false starts and financial difficulties, and was shot on 70mm film in the mid-century VistaVision format. The beautiful retro format would have required the filmmakers to transport 26 reels of film, weighing approximately 300 pounds, to Italy for the film's world premiere.
At the film's press conference earlier in the day, Corbet became emotional as he spoke about the challenges he faced in bringing his vision to the screen.
“This was an incredibly difficult film to make,” he said. “I’m very emotional today because we worked on it for seven years and it felt urgent every day for the better part of a decade.”
Trevor Matthews and Nick Gordon of Brookstreet Pictures produced alongside Brian Young, Andrew Morrison of Kaplan Morrison, Andrew Lauren Prods. Andrew Lauren and DJ Gugenheim.
The screening marked an important return for Corbet to his usual haunts in Venice. The actor-turned-author presented his first film here, The Childhood of a Leaderand won the award for best debut film. He returned with Natalie Portman and Jude Law Vox Lux. He also directed episodes of the series with Tom Holland The crowded room for Apple TV+.
Corbet thanked the Venice Film Festival for “supporting my films when no one else did,” saying that Venice “really made my films possible.”