Words by Karen O’Leary

The Brutalist (2024), dir. Brady Cobert.

It makes sense that a film about the life and work of an architect would be concerned with its own structural composition. Indeed, much has been said about its separate parts – the distinct halves, the intermission, the epilogue. A commonly held opinion seems to be that the film takes a sharp downturn in the second half. And it does, narratively speaking.

The first half is an ascension. It’s a compelling, very straight-forward immigrant narrative – arriving on new shores, struggling to find your feet, but persevering until you are rewarded in turn. This is the American dream. It’s a fairy tale, a Cinderella story of sorts – although this time the blessing of a fairy godmother is swapped out for the patronage of a wealthy industrialist.

But, as in the film’s opening sequence, László’s ascent is unsteady; a shaky climb up a claustrophobic ship stairwell opens to a stark, white sky, with an upside-down Statue of Liberty looming overhead. This staggering image has become an icon for the entire film. It’s utterly disorienting – almost as if it’s falling over while standing upright.

As László makes a new life for himself in America, the pitfalls he encounters along the way seem to affirm that when you fall so low, things can only get better. The only way is up. On the brink of artistic brilliance, about to be reunited with his family, the first half ends on a sincere promise. And as the intermission counts down, László’s wedding portrait looks back at us – smiling, happy.

The second half tears down that pretty picture, and a steady descent begins. Weathered by the war, his wife returns to him changed, disabled. Then, predictably, the Van Buren project goes (literally) off the rails. Suddenly, the story becomes less fairy tale, and more tragic myth. Like all heroes worth their salt, László needs to pay a visit to the Underworld - and what better Underworld than the marble quarries of Carrara? Here, in the ancient, rocky depths, László is assaulted, making literal the exploitation that was once implied. The hero’s journey, as it were, comes crumbling down. The question of László’s future, if he will ever rise again, remains uncertain as the second half comes to a close.

The epilogue, set decades later at the Venice Biennale, appears to answer that question. We learn that László made it - to Venice, no less – and has lived long enough to see his life’s work celebrated. It should feel like a happy-ever-after - but it doesn’t. This isn’t Canaletto’s Venice. It’s the ‘80s. There’s faded grandeur in the air. Badly-dressed tourists are milling about. At once, the film offers and rescinds its fairytale ending. It’s uplifting in one sense, yet oddly downbeat in every other, as László’s success is consciously de-romanticised.

The epilogue is a deliberately bewildering coda, a fascinating side-step. Some have questioned why it exists. Looking at the film’s structure, the epilogue is not the awkward addition it might initially appear to be, but is itself a second-second half, a frame that mirrors the film’s very first scene – which, lest we forget, begins not with László, but with his niece Zsófia. Then, she was silent, enduring an interrogation about who she is, and where she comes from. Now, standing up and speaking confidently, it is she who articulates what László’s legacy means, perhaps because she is his legacy.

This isn’t László’s story anymore. In his old age, he is mute, wheelchair-bound, unable to partake in the celebrations of his own legacy, or to even have a say in what that legacy is. While László’s buildings may indeed be too sturdy for the banks of the Danube to erode, some things are not so easily cemented. Legacy, meaning, and value are fragile, ever-changing, subject to cycles of public opinion. The film’s ambivalent ending embraces its own fate amidst those ups and downs, safe in the knowledge that there is a core, something foundational, that cannot, and will not, be articulated.