The Beast - Movie Review

over the course of his 10 feature films French filmmaker betatron Bello has been crafting increasingly remarkable work with films like 2011's House of Tolerance and 2016's nocturama but with his latest the Beast he has fashioned what might just be his most accomplished work to date using Henry james' seminal Nolla the beast in the jungle as a loose jumping off point Vanella transposes james' writing onto a dizzy and canvas it's a radical adaptation that molds the rich pros and Central concerns of the source material into a dazzling time-shifting Odyssey of an elusive and impossible love spanning three distinct time periods over two Centuries with moments set in 1910 2014 and 2044 we piece together this mystifying tale of humankind's Rapid intellectual and technological Evolution or in many cases Devolution yet the only thing tying every moment together is life's innate desire and constant search for that thing called love that no technological advancement could ever satisfy no matter how hard it tries Bello's film shapes a bleak and sterilized future where every step has been taken to numb and expunge Humanity's longing for connection yet it still prevails a world where emotions are no more and past lives can be easily accessed in a purification process that treats emotion as a trauma of sorts that need to be purged from one's DNA against this abstract science fiction backdrop two wandering Souls who find themselves intersecting throughout time emerge first in 1910 Paris where our two leads Gabrielle a Pianist and Louie a handsome member of Parisian High Society have a chance encounter at a ball and where Gabrielle first confides in him her premonition of an amorphous but catastrophic Beast that would annihilate anyone she loves nearly a century later we find these same characters in 2014 Los Angeles where Gabrielle is now an aspiring model and Louie now pronounced Lewis is an incel who Vlogs about his many frustrations with women and his steady inclinations toward violence he spends his days watching Gabrielle from outside her home and stalking her and pulsating nightclubs the final period is in an AI ridden 2044 where Gabrielle is out of work now relegated to menial tasks and aimless wandering encountering Louie once again but this time at the DNA purification sessions they both fear will cleanse them of their ability to ever have profound emotions ever again with this playful tryptic structure Bella was able to give each section its own distinctive but familiar cinematic touch cross cutting between the different time periods so elegantly his 1910 segment has that Classical period piece flavor with Susu bouris ornamentations as well as a distinctly bonello spin on the literary Grandeur found in many classic period romances like scores the Age of Innocence the Los Angeles sequence bleeds Lynch influence and most notably bringing to mind his work like Inland Empire and Twin Peaks the return through its digital flourishes and a skewing of reality the dystopian 2044 moments are disquieting and clinical as emotionless and stripped of Life a world ruled by AI would be what emerges from this combination of genres and cinematic signifiers is a work that then finds hypnotic power and small details and motifs tying together each segment with recurring use of seemingly mundane things a doll a knife pigeons nightclubs that end up holding this puzzle together as one complete piece echoing across different time periods formal styles and tones even with these wandering and time skipping passages the Beast still manages to maintain such a fluid momentum largely because bonello is raming with some of his finest collaborators namely in cinematographer Jose De who also lined his ravishing House of tolerance as well as editor Anita Roth whose work on his 2019 film zombie child is just as unconventional and its melding of diverse uncanny frames there are so many striking images here including Inky baths with a needle-like probe hanging above it body swinging and colliding on the Dance Floor flooded streets and buildings or my personal favorite Leia seu hunched over a laptop as clips from Harmony karine's trash humpers pop up onto her screen it's these odd visual diversions that make bonello such a fascinating filmmaker to me his dance sequences in particular which have always been a specialty of his are littered with style and Pitch Perfect needle drops shot with such a careful attention to movement that nicely contrasts with the booming music and strobe lighting the sequences also play an important thematic role in the 2044 segment as their moments that give Gabrielle insight into a liberated life before the world was entirely dictated by technology the filmm is punctuated by at least for my money a career best and career defining turn from the always magnificent Leu a three-roll performance that has her playing a range of personas and emotions from a beautiful acclaimed pianist tendered by tradition to an LA model caught in the Whirlwind of green screens in plastic surgery to a disaffected woman getting her past lives purged sidu as she's shown many times before in her already illustrious career has an adaptability at playing slippery figures that display such extreme emotional range and and this is her finest work yet Bella derives so much weight from the shifting landscape of her face whether it's in her blank emotionless stares sharp screams or abrupt tears if you somehow already didn't think that she's one of our most exciting living performers her work as Gabrielle should change your mind her counterpart George mcky has much less to do here but really shines in the LA sequence perfectly nailing this Elliot Roger inspired incel character a performance suffused with pitch black humor and a real mounting sense of dread as he vacantly monologues into a fuzzy iPhone C camera these are two of the very best and most singular performances you're going to find all year the Beast is a 146 minute Feast a cacophony of ideas and images that overwhelm you at every turn Visions packed with Terror pleasure and confusion that are impossible to shake built on a vision of a future that could soon enough be ours a world with no space left for intimacy hindered by a constant fear for the indefinable realities of love it's a fiercely ambitious and provocative film with each oddly discordant Choice it makes continuously building on each other until you reach its shattering conclusion one that culminates with dance of logging and fear set to the sentimental lyrics of Roy Orbison the Beast is well and truly bonello's magnumopus his latest confounding aching Masterpiece that is entirely and gloriously his own [Music]

Channel: The Film Loner

Views: 4,256

Keywords:

Id: enj8h2rK-Ic

Length: 6min 4sec (364 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024