When Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) meets László Tóth (Adrien Brody), he remarks—almost accusingly—that their conversation is “intellectually stimulating.” Tóth, an accomplished architect forced to flee his home country after the horrors of WWII, reflects that his love for architecture boils down to the simplicity of its form: nothing but architecture, he asserts, can be better seen than described. A cube can only be understood when it is witnessed. Van Buren’s comment seems complimentary, yet an undercurrent of foreboding and judgment tinges what could be mistaken for flattery. Perhaps it’s that this self-made American millionaire finds himself taken aback by the poetic musings of a Hungarian Brutalist architect, his sympathies and biases toward post-war Europe swirling into a hazy stew of pity and otherness. To glimpse genius in the battered face of an immigrant startles Van Buren, who is, at his core, an opportunist with a taste for fine art but a habit of sponsoring little beyond his own vanity. Read More
