The Beast

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I absolutley love the actors and the idea of reincarnation. I'm not a huge fan of scifi, but the concept of this was interesting, especially considering the topics surrounding AI today. But besides the actors and the concept I found this incredibly dull. I was bored almost the entire time. There's a lot of symbolism, and it's very artsy but it felt like it was trying too hard. I wanted more investment in the characters, as it was I didn't care. It also felt very predictable, and like a waste of my time. I knew where it was going and the journey there was a tedious one. I didn't enjoy it one bit. But, as I said, I love the actors.

Okay so you have this woman going through memories of various points in her extended lifetime, starting in.1910 with her being pursued by a character played by George Mackay. Now this character is totally unlikable and commits the worst rule of sales, and that's by introducing a negative aspect to the negotiations and he did that by telling the woman he's trying to persuade about being married to a boring husband. There was nothing believable about this and the actors had zero chemistry, add that Mackay's character was a boorish pretentious prick of humongous proportions. I watched to the part where the android take her to the futuristic disco and questions her as to whom she was talking and she claims that she left a faithful, loving and successful husband for a useless cardboard cut-out, and at that point saw just how stupid and weak this monstrosity of a movie this was going to become.

What a pompous mess. The run time is excruciatingly long. It feels like a really bad black mirror episode made by french people who think they're hot intellectuals and recycle a bunch of science fiction tropes without seeming to understand it. The acting is wooden, there's an obese black horny lesbian robot, there's no chemistry between the two leads, the husband is such a dork it's painful to watch, and the whole thing is essentially unwatchable. Had it been a 40min black mirror episode, it could have worked, but there simply isn't enough meat to the story, or talent across actors and directors to stretch this to 2.5 hours. Wasn't it either Descartes or Einstein that recognized that being concise is way harder than verbose? Incredibly arrogant to make so little so long. Or incompetent. Or both.

When David Ehrlich reviewed The Beast (org. French title La Bête), he made the case (that the movie makes the case) that every arthouse director should get to make "their own Cloud Atlas" before joining the choir invisible. That is a fair way to view Bertrand Bonello's recent opus -- a languid sci-fi drama that, as far as I'm concerned, solidified the movie year of 2024 as worthy of '23. When seeking out strange and defiant new cinema, this is exactly the kind of mystifying journey on which I yearn to be taken. In the film, we follow Lea Seydoux through what appears to be different time periods. In several of them, the construction of dolls is involved. In the past and present storylines, she encounters a man played by George MacKay; in the future, she seems to dream of all these moments while submerged in a dark substance. Are they real events on any level? Hey, don't look at me. It is the sort of film that might easily turn some people off and seem inaccessible as I describe it. (Others have likened its atmosphere and dream logic to the works of Lynch and its unsettling view of love and sexuality to the works of Cronenberg.) But I assure you that the film as such is often quite funny, with MacKay portraying one of the most wince-inducingly accurate parodies of the Incel archetype we've ever seen on film -- his pathetic "I deserve girls" vlog is one of the highlights of the picture, although its similarities with the infamous Elliot Rodger rant will doubtless disturb some viewers. If that's not doing it for you (understandable), the film also offers beautiful shot compositions, masterly lighting, and wicked satire of modern movie-making itself, chiefly the digitalization of it. Also, I guess in one of the time periods or "realities" or whatever, Seydoux's character is an actress whose credits seem to include Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers. As it happens, we'll be talking more about Korine later -- along with a markedly less intelligent contemplation on modern/future cinema.

The movie is filmed beautifully and the acting is great but the story is rediculous and flimsy. Two people who love eachother are shown in two past lives and one future live. The two past lives end in disaster, and this trauma is somehow present in and haunting the future pair. But in the future it is possible to erase the trauma. It is very strongly suggested that erasing the trauma will erase some important quality of the love between them. ---- Only the man manages to erase the trauma, the technique (lying in a bath while your dna is purified by a little stick that goes into your ear)does not work with the woman. It is suggested that her love is somehow better that the love of the healed man. A bit of an unhealthy view on relationships if you ask me. The idea that an AI now rules the world is not important at all for the plot.

This is the first time that I 've found myself wondering "What on earth is going on???" not once but several times during a movie. For the life of me, I cannot understand those critics who give it a 5* rating. Admittedly I'm not one to drool over 146 minutes of Lea Seydoux's snub-nosed beauty and found her bland presence difficult to enjoy. And if George Mackay recovers from this serious misstep on his cinematic cv, then he has an agent worth his weight in gold. I have not seen any of Bonello's previous films, so have come into this film cold. I did note the celebrated type of director that he is associated with - Nolan, Lynch, Cronenberg and Scott to name the most quoted - but the lack of one quality definitely sets him apart from them and that is "lack of coherence". I'm all for a film needing to demand a degree of forbearance from the audience but for the audience to know the importance of dates and events shown by the film - a flooded Paris, a California menaced by earthquakes and a serial misogynist killer (that in particular could result in a lot of misplaced guesswork !!) and then to cap it with a projection into the future where the only striking feature is a night-black mud bath that is used in the process of "cleansing the body totally of it's DNA characteristics", it really is asking a lot. Maybe the film has value as a warning of how uncontrolled A. I. might cause humanity to become mindless drones but then the "masters of the universe "of Silicon Valley have more than got us halfway there. So perhaps Kubrick's "2001" and Gilliam's "Brazil" are more relevant cinematic touchstones here. As for checking whether Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle" has relevance here, that's not for me. I'd rather spend a day watching paint dry.

With all the strange things going on in Bertrand Bonello's _The Beast_ as distraction, no one seems to have mentioned the weirdest: reincarnation seems to be taken for granted. Either that, or they characters live in a computer simulacrum. As a result, there is absolutely no stake in anything that happens. The pixels can just reconstitute itself and life stumbles on. It is cinema without consequence, without faith. At least Lea Seydoux's three lives makes _The Beast_ worth watching. She plays a Parisian pianist in 1910, a Los Angeles aspiring actress in 2014, and an underemployed in an AI-ruled future. The emotions! The pageantry! (The set design is impressive too. The change in aspect ratio is a bad gimmick.) The film is loosely based on Henry James's famous short story about a man's foreboding of impending tragedy. That fear leads him to waste his life and chance of redemption. But the sense of "longing for an exalting experience that will redeem a humdrum existence" (wikipedia) associated with the novella, and found in the other recent adaptation (with Anais Demoustier), is largely missing. Seydoux's characters are afraid all the time, but seemingly of small, irrelevant things. Loss of self via digital identity theft, or having her likeness commercialized into dolls, or to neural engineering -- but not to social media tribalism, or mind altering drugs which she takes at one point? Climate change, limited to flooding in London? Soulless modernity, restricted to the rise of Schoenberg? With so much to shoot at in the modern world, Bonello seems to have picked all the wrong targets. One clear influence on the middle stanza of _The Beast_ no one has mentioned is Haneke's _Funny Games_, also about home invasion and double victimization by "rewinding" the scene of the heroine's escape. It is gratifying to me that the Cinema of Humiliation merchant Haneke is all but forgotten these days. Bonello isn't quite as misanthropic. But his cinematic vision is just as small-time.

In 2044, AI is running the world, most humans are redundant, and strong emotions are suspect. Hoping to land a meaningful job, Gabrielle is encouraged by her friend Louis to undergo DNA repair therapy, which involves reliving past lives to remove hidden traumas. It seems that those two have quite a bit of history. In 1910, Gabrielle is a famous musician in Paris, married to an industrialist. However, she strikes up a relationship with another man, Louis. In 2014, Gabrielle is a lonely young struggling actress in L. A., housesitting a home way beyond her means. Louis is a 30-year-old incel who stalks her from her favorite dance club. Louis has sex only in his dreams, and, with his experience of being rejected by women, has trouble relating to Gabrielle when she gives him an invitation. In both cases, there is foreboding of disaster and death (the beast), something that consulting a psychic does not materially help. The actors play different characters with different personalities, and acquit themselves well. The main stories (1910 and 2014) are well fleshed out, though the 2044 action seems to be more of an excuse to show the earlier ones. Some reviews complain about the length of the movie, but, with the multiple stories, I find it acceptable, far more than the longer Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, showing at the same multiplex at the same time. This movie is shortened by skipping the final credits - they put up a QR code, so if you are interested, have your cellphone ready near the end. I'm not too fond of the scientific / Freudian mumbo jumbo that backs the stories, but I will give it a pass, since the plot depends on it. There is, however, one sex scene (or fantasy) that is bewildering. With the action moving back and forth between 3 time periods, it can get bit confusing. At times I wished I was watching this on video, so that I could re-wind and re-view certain scenes.

The Beast is set in a future where artificial intelligence reigns supreme and emotions are considered a liability. But beneath the sleek veneer of this dystopian world lies a hauntingly beautiful exploration of love, memory, and what it means to be human. The film weaves a complex narrative that jumps between time periods. We meet Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux, always captivating), a woman in 2044 grappling with a mysterious illness. To find a cure, she undergoes a radical treatment that forces her to confront past lives-a passionate romance in 1910 Paris and a disturbing encounter in 2014 California. The historical and cultural juxtapositions are fascinating. Bonello uses them to subtly critique the present, particularly the pervasive sense of unease and the erosion of privacy in our hyper-connected world. One minute we're waltzing through a Belle Époque dreamscape, and the next we're plunged into the grimy underbelly of the internet, bombarded with unsettling imagery. It's a sensory overload that perfectly captures the fragmented nature of our times. The film's greatest strength lies in its central performances. Seydoux is phenomenal. She seamlessly embodies Gabrielle's different iterations, from the wide-eyed innocence of her 1910 persona to the jaded cynicism of her present self. George Mackay, as her 1910 lover, delivers a performance that's both tender and nuanced. Their on-screen chemistry is palpable, making their star-crossed romance all the more heartbreaking. While the plot itself is intriguing, it can be a tad convoluted at times. The multiple timelines occasionally feel disjointed, demanding a patient viewer willing to piece together the puzzle. But the film rewards perseverance. The fragmented narrative reflects Gabrielle's own fractured state of mind, creating a sense of unease that perfectly complements the film's themes. Thematically, The Beast is a rich tapestry. It delves into the power of love and loss, the allure of the past, and the ever-present threat of a future devoid of human emotion. Bonello doesn't shy away from big questions, leaving us to grapple with the implications of a world sterilised of strong feelings. The film's technical aspects are equally impressive. The cinematography is evocative, with dreamlike sequences contrasting sharply with the sterile, tech-heavy future. The editing, though occasionally abrupt, mirrors the film's non-linear narrative, adding to its disorienting effect. The Beast isn't an easy watch. It's a slow burn. And it certainly won't be for everyone. When I went to see it, a couple of people walked out. And if some of the comments I heard after the movie had finished are to go by, some people just didn't get what the movie was about. But for those seeking a thought-provoking and visually stunning film experience, it's a must-see. It left me unsettled, yet strangely hopeful, reminding me of the enduring power of human connection in a world increasingly obsessed with control. If you're looking for a popcorn flick with a clear-cut ending, look elsewhere. But if you're open to a challenging and rewarding cinematic journey-one that you will need to work hard at-The Beast will satisfy you, and you'll be looking for someone to discuss it with as soon as you can. An excellent movie for our times.