Throughout history, fiction has had a particular talent for attracting vitriolic outrage, for the power it allegedly holds over impressionable minds. At a time when this very sentiment seems to have been experiencing a peak in popularity for quite some time – and across the political spectrum – I have spent much of my youth radically defending the art of storytelling as a safe haven away from omnipresent discourse, meant to offer the precious freedom of examining the human condition without enclosing it in topical debates, statistics or any sort of claims. Most of the time, I continue to hold firm to this position – for better or worse. But occasionally, I am reminded that, in the battlefield of ideas, fiction does, at the very least, possess an unfair advantage.
Recently, that reminder came in the form of The Brutalist, a work of historical fiction about the travails of Lazlo Toth, a holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States from his native Bulgaria. Separated from his wife, survival as an immigrant is depicted as a lonely and perilous process until Harry Lee Van Buren, a self-made man of considerable wealth, is made aware of Toth’s talents as an architect, and employs him in the construction of a community centre. With his help, Toth’s wife Erzsebet – along with her niece, Zsofia – arrives in the United States, and he discovers that her experience of the war has left her confined to a wheelchair. Although the film largely feels like a traditional Hollywood tale of the triumphant artist against the oppressions of his time, place and status, the narrative takes a surprising turn when an admirative but deeply resentful Van Buren rapes Toth. As might be expected, the latter remains quiet on the event, until a drug-induced state of communion with his wife prompts him to reveal it to her. Said drugs were a solution of last resort to Erzsebet’s pain from her osteoporosis – and they work well, but almost kill her. When she is revived at the hospital, the couple decide to turn their backs on the Van Burens and in fact the United States for good. They emigrate to Israel, where Zsofia has already built a new life for herself.
Why has this film, in particular, reminded me of the pernicious possibilities of storytelling? A simple answer might be that it is historical fiction. This means that its worldbuilding is anchored not only in the familiarity of day-to-day life and credible characters, but in the reality of true events. One might say, then, that by its very genre it wields a special kind of power, that of shaping history itself to the mould of its author’s intentions. Moreover, The Brutalist is also a faux biopic: this means that it isn’t only set in the past, but it intends to create the illusion of being a ‘true story’. And it does this effectively – ask a viewer without any knowledge of the film outside the work itself, and they will most likely believe it to be an actual biopic, not an imitation of one.
Perhaps this fact can explain some of the online criticism of The Brutalist’s relationship with history. Often, they have tended to centre on how its fictional protagonist’s story differs from those of similar real-life architects with whom Toth shares either his Jewish ethnicity, social status or a pioneering role in Bauhaus architecture (but rarely all three). Underlining these odd objections to a made-up character bearing made-up traits, we might speculate a kind of mistrust, a more or less rational audience impression that the film is attempting to trick them. On a more intellectual note, these commentators might simply be trying to say that historical fiction should, through its imagined stories, strive to truthfully deal with larger historical realities.
In this vein, more pertinent critiques of The Brutalist have more directly condemned what they claim to be its message, with apologists either urging for a more nuanced interpretation of a poignant film, or disputing its alleged political leaning outright. And while debates on the ideological intentions behind such a personal, layered and character-driven story can be, by nature, endless and subjective, it is only natural to ask what this fictional story wants to tell us about its historical context, and namely about Jewish emigration to the United States in the wake of the Holocaust. What does Lazlo Toth’s experience show us, and what does it appear to elude?
To begin with, among the film’s most striking observations is the troubling fact that even family can fail to be the source of support and, frankly, love that a refugee such as Toth desperately needs. When he first arrives in America, his cousin welcomes him into his home, but not in the main part of the house, and wastes no time in making him earn his keep. He has also integrated into this foreign environment to a grating extent, having changed his name, purposefully married a non-Jewish woman and, ultimately, failing to stand up for Toth against his prejudiced wife. With the support which might be expected of a relative in an entirely foreign country, Lazlo might have been, if not shielded, at the very least armoured against the difficulties he is destined to face. Instead, he is largely left to fend off these new wolves by himself. This perhaps allows the film to distil the immigrant experience into an almost parabolic relationship between Toth, his wife and his wife’s niece on one side, and the Van Burens on the other. The latter are symbols not only of how the power of wealth in America is more readily available to those with wolf-like sensibilities, but of the eery similarity between this American ruling class, and the ethnic archetype preferred by Toth’s European persecutors.
What then, does the film leave out of its parable? The most glaring absence, to this viewer at least, is that of any real sense of community. Toth does have one friend, a black man struggling as much as himself, but he is, as far as we can tell, the only person with whom Toth shares his burdens besides his wife. The only other member of the Jewish immigrant community he appears to have any contact with is his greedy and hypocritical cousin. Being part of a considerable wave of Jewish emigration to the United States, it truly pushes the bounds of acceptable disbelief that this would be the case. The Toths’ real-life counterparts had the same struggles and foes. But they rarely faced them alone in the woods.
This makes our protagonist’s experience appear bleaker than what American audiences are used to, and even expect from such a film. Clearly, it is meant to offer a counterpoint to the more familiar tropes of the American Dream, replacing a fantasy of ultimate triumph at the end of a harsh but fair capitalistic struggle, with the truer image of crushing bigotry at the heart of American life – even for those who succeed. But despite this valid intention, in viewing the result, I surprised myself in longing for a return of the usual uncritical optimism and self-satisfied trust in the benevolent hand of capitalism which sees neither colour, gender, religion or accent.
Because at its best, the American Dream is a celebration of multiculturalism. It is the product of a nation capable, due to its history, of viewing itself as a never-ending experiment in which newcomers are expected not merely to act within the confines of existing structures, but to build America themselves. It is also, historically, not a trope which ignores the realities of bigotry or the hardships of class struggle, but one that responds to these things with an imperfect solution: the powerless should strive to succeed despite all that, and counter at least the psychological bullying of the powerful with all the force of their own aspirations.
By contrast, the solution The Brutalist ultimately offers is one of ethnic withdrawal. The film doesn’t simply avoid the miasma of capitalism in which American stories of emancipation usually, seemingly inevitably move – it chooses to take us out of the country itself, and in doing so gives up on the idea of multiculturalism altogether. By refusing to stick it out in this deeply flawed land of opportunity and removing themselves from the fray, the Toths effectively opt to leave the making of America to the Van Buurens.
In the narrative itself, this decision feels like an about-face, a Deus-ex-machina solution to the conflict. In fact, we are clearly expected to understand it as a divine revelation, miraculously brought to Toth’s wife during her drug-induced coma. She then reserves the privilege of announcing their departure to Van Buuren herself, and takes the opportunity to denounce him as a rapist before his family and guests. During this moment of triumph, she also happens to be walking, albeit in crutches: her wheelchair days are behind her and, clearly, no medical explanation is needed.
Very thinly veiled spiritual undertones continue into the epilogue, which features a Toth family trip to attend an honorary exhibition of Lazlo’s works in Venice, decades into the future. There, a relative of the Toths gives an impassioned speech about the architect’s life and struggles, ending on a bold poetic statement: “[…] no matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.”
Except that, in the true story of human populations, there really are only journeys – endless ones. History has no end, and people do not forever escape oppression, greed and the coldness of the human heart by returning to their own, private, rightful haven. That only happens in stories.