‘The Brutalist’ Offers One Take on the Immigrant Experience — Here Are 10 More
Perhaps the definitive image of “The Brutalist,” found near the opening of the film and featured heavily in its marketing, is an undulating, upside-down shot of the Statue of Liberty as a boat full of newly-arrived foreigners celebrate its presence. For them, it marks the end of a long journey, but in a signal to the audience, director Brady Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley tell us that very few are aware of what fresh horrors await on these new shores.
The immigrant experience, whether it be in depictions of dangerous crossings or the strife of settling in a new place far from what is known, has long been examined by filmmakers. Some have done so as a way of tracing their own family history, like in the case of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather: Part II,” or as a form of understanding someone else’s plight in the instance of the animated documentary “Flee.” While no one journey is the same as another, these types of stories are united in their effort to depict the full complexities of what it means to uproot oneself and start fresh in an often far off place you’ve never been. What motivates this kind of action? Why would a person take that risk? Often it has to do with a tragic circumstance, such as war or genocide, but on a more fundamental level, the characters in these films draw on the same thing they’d be drawing on in their homeland if they could: Hope.
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In “The Brutalist,” hope is what keeps previously renowned Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) shoveling coal in a shipyard when he should be designing buildings. It’s also what draws him into the web of wealthy businessman Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and the project that will consume his life for over a decade. In this sense, hope is a madness, but it’s also what keeps driving us forward, as exemplified by films like “The Brutalist,” Joan Micklin Silver’s “Hester Street,” and even the animated children’s adventure “An American Tail.”
Unfortunately, not everyone’s hope is rewarded, but there is always a lesson to be learned in appreciating how far people are willing to go to build a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Like “The Brutalist,” the films below honor that commitment, while at the same time exploring that hardship it often requires.
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