Why did The Brutalist get a 12-minute standing ovation at The Venice Film Festival?

The world’s oldest film festival has caught some attention this year. Not just for the Oscar-winning actors roaming the city, but also for the impressive film screenings and their effect on those who are moved after watching them. And this year, one in particular has really moved the audience: Brady Corbet’s epic period film ‘The Brutalist’.

After its screening, the film received a standing ovation - one a lot longer than a usual applause at the end of the film. Film reporters, including those from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter who were at the event, put the applause in between 12 and 13 minutes. We decided to take a look at why this film has caught the attention of the world.

First things’ first. The film stars a decorated array of actors which only increases intrigue and sets the film as high quality before you have even seen it: Oscar winner Adrien Brody; Screen Actors Guild Award winner Guy Pearce; Oscar nominee Felicity Jones and English actor Joe Alwyn.

Brady Corbet is the director. Having started his career as an actor himself, he has a particular vision. Corbet premiered “The Childhood of a Leader” in 2015 at the same festival and earned the Luigi De Laurentiis award for best debut film and the Horizons best director prize. He also brought 2018’s “Vox Lux” to the Venice Film Festival, competing for the Golden Lion. 

Corbet’s film is an incredible seven-years-in-the-making - with ‘various false starts and financing challenges’ as the reasons for its long, anticipated await from The Hollywood Reporter.

The way the film was shot certainly is one of the reasons critics are raving about it. It arrived to Venice as 26 reels of film weighing 300 pounds. Corbet achieved the retro format by shooting the film on 70mm film stock in the ‘mid-century VistaVision format’ (the same as Rebecca Lyons used in 'Oppenheimer', pictured) and described as ‘beautiful’ by the Hollywood Reporter.

The director said at the film’s press conference that it is ‘silly’ to have a conversation about runtime. That a book may be 700 or 100 pages and that’s precisely like a film, it can be long or short depending on the story. Well, The Brutalist runs at a staggering three hours, 35 minutes. It is so long, there is a 10 minute intermission for a bathroom break.

Adrien Brody plays a Hungarian holocaust survivor, László Tóth, who moved to the United States to find the American dream. The Jewish architect attempts to revive his career as a Brutalist architect, a building style responsible for some of the most striking buildings of the 21st century. The topic is unique, moving and emotional, ideal to allow the audience to reflect on a number of themes.

The Hollywood Reporter summarises the emotional themes we can find in The Brutalist, telling us it depicts “meaty themes as creativity and compromise, Jewish identity, architectural integrity, the immigrant experience, the arrogant insularity of privilege and the long reach of the past.

As you can imagine, it pulled a few heart strings at the festival and many critics have expressed supreme praise for the film, with some even comparing it to ‘some of the most acclaimed Hollywood films of all time’, as the Independent tells us. Discussing Film even called the masterpiece ‘staggering’.

The Times, like many other critics, gave a five star review and said the film would be the one to watch at next year’s Oscars. It seems The Brutalist is around to stay and will continue to attract attention far beyond that of its standing ovation.

Adrien Brody was moved to tears after the incredible applause and the screening was, in general, extremely emotional for all who went. The standing ovation doesn’t quite beat the record holder:  Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ received an unbelievable 22 minutes standing ovation in 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival.

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