Editor’s note: The following story mentions sexual assault. To call the National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org.
Brady Corbet, the actor-turned-writer/director, rarely compromises on subtlety. If audiences don’t understand the criticisms of American culture that coax artists into commodifying their pain sound of lux (2018), a voiceover at the end reveals that the pop star protagonist experienced a near-death vision of making a pact with the devil. Similar straightforward visual metaphors dominate the opening of Corbett’s latest work, fauvism (2024). As Hungarian Holocaust survivor László Toth (Adrien Brody) climbs onto the deck of the ship taking him to the United States, Daniel Blumberg’s score and cinematography by Raul Crow Leigh’s photography all became increasingly chaotic, culminating in an upside-down image of the Statue of Liberty. . Maybe the American Dream isn’t all it promises?
fauvism There are grand designs. This is the first feature film in decades to be shot in VistaVision, a film format used for old-school epics such as Ten Commandments (1956). The show will be presented as a 70mm print at selected venues during its theatrical run, with its 215-minute running time comprised of one of two individually titled performances (“Mystery of Arrival” and “Beautiful Hardcore”). intermission. The story follows the architect László who struggled for many years to complete his work. great joba mixed-use community center in an affluent Philadelphia suburb. He frequently clashes with wealthy sponsor Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and works with his fellow survivor wife (Felicity Jones) to bury their lingering trauma.
The film’s tropes about immigrant alienation, the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Jewish-American experience, and the friction between artists and patrons are all familiar, if not commonplace. It’s frustrating that the movie can’t always trust its audience; most ridiculously, there’s a rape scene in which the attacker’s words to the victim make clear the symbolism of the attack.
Nonetheless, Corbett does find ways to explore some of these ideas in new ways. This is perhaps best exemplified by Blumberg’s score, which is both majestic and dissonant, recalling the work of Corbett’s former collaborator Scott Walker, to whom the film is dedicated. Working with vintage celluloid craftsmanship is not an act of vanity; VistaVision’s sweeping scope is perfect for a film that focuses so much on people within a space, particularly within a building. Of all the single elements, it’s the film’s tone that does the greatest work, convincingly transporting the viewer into the story’s medieval setting. One sequence captures a marble quarry in Carrara, Italy, and its sweeping sweep is truly stunning on the big screen.
Most interestingly for those interested in art history and architecture, Corbett and Mona Fastvold’s script also deals with Brutalism and its emotional value. In a dance between camera and architectural space, Brutalism offers countless possibilities through its emphasis on monochrome, pronounced angles and curves, and of course the monumentality of many public works. Historically, films have often cited majestic Brutalist architecture as simple shorthand for evil. Real Brutalist architecture and Brutalist-style fictional architecture serve as the backdrop for dystopias, overwhelming bureaucracies, and/or purely impersonal institutions in Orson Welles’ film adaptation of Kafka trial (1962) to A Clockwork Orange (1971) to 1984 (1984) to balance (2002) and many, many more. Poster for Frederick Wiseman documentary City Hall (2020), set in Boston’s notoriously controversial Brutalist Civic Center, references the famous great white shark (1975) poster with a corner of a building replacing a shark.
Even if Brutalism isn’t overtly sinister, the filmmakers found its expressive power well suited to producing an uncanny, even downright alien effect. high-rise (2015), adapted from the novel of the same name, tells the story of social collapse in an isolated apartment complex, rendering JG Ballard’s depiction of five towers that look like fingers clawing at the sky as Brutalist architecture. “It looks like an unconscious illustration of a mysterious psychic event,” one character says. exist last and first person (2020), Brutalism monument War memorials in the former Yugoslavia represent humanity billions of years later. exist barbarian, Laszlo saw his community center as an example of the brutalist proletarian spirit, combining its proposed function in the area with its scale. Van Buren, for his part, was simply impressed by the monumentality of the form and cared only that the building was a suitable self-promoting monument to himself and his revered late mother.
All of these philosophies are presented in the film without the words “Brutalism” or “Brutalism” actually being mentioned, and with minimal explicit discussion of Laszlo’s philosophy or reasoning. (Though if one wants to nitpick, the furniture he designs in the first hour of the film is more modernist than brutalist.) There is another underlying meaning to his work, raised at the end of the film, that places his Blueprint serves as a very literal expression of his time in the concentration camp. The validity of this interpretation is left to the viewer’s intuitive judgment. A more important point that echoes Shelley’s Ozymandias (1977) is that no matter what an artist’s intentions, they cannot influence the shape of their legacy. “No matter what anyone else tries to sell you,” one character says in the film’s memorable closing line, “it’s just the destination, not the journey.”
fauvism (2024), directed by Brady Corbett, will be released in theaters nationwide starting December 20.
