Architecture is never apolitical, and El Brutalista carries a heavy ideological burden. In the 1960s and 70s, Brutalism became the
The term "Brutalism" does not come from "brutal" in the English sense of cruelty. It derives from the French béton brut , meaning "raw concrete." Pioneered by Le Corbusier in the 1950s, brutalism emerged from the ashes of World War II. Europe needed to rebuild cheaply, quickly, and morally.
Returning to the tortured-artist territory of The Pianist , Brody delivers a career-best. He learned to speak fluent Hungarian and gained 25 pounds of muscle, then lost it all to play the aged Tóth. Watch the scene where he sees the finished concrete chapel for the first time: his face cracks like the dry mud of a riverbed.
Fans of Paul Thomas Anderson ( There Will Be Blood ), Terrence Malick, or Béla Tarr. Architects, historians of the 20th century, and anyone tired of Marvel pacing.
The pioneer of this aesthetic was the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. In the post-World War II era, Europe faced a desperate shortage of housing and a scarcity of steel. Le Corbusier turned to concrete—not as a cheap substitute to be hidden, but as a material to be celebrated. His Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (completed in 1952) was the manifesto. It did not hide the seams of the wooden planks used to cast the concrete; it highlighted them. It was honest, tactile, and unadorned.
She only appears for 45 minutes of the runtime, but her monologue at a Philadelphia dinner party—where she exposes Van Buren’s hypocrisy in Yiddish-accented English—is the film’s emotional climax.
With a 15-minute intermission, is longer than Lawrence of Arabia . Critics love the "interplanetary" scope; general audiences complain of "numbing" pacing. One viral tweet read: "I admired El Brutalista. I did not like it. I felt like I was the concrete building."
Despite winning the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival, has sparked furious debate. Here are the three major lightning rods: