Skip to main content

The Beast


This is an oddly constructed reincarnation AI romance film (you probably won't hear that every day). Based loosely on the Henry James novella, The Beast in the Jungle, director Bertrand Bonello sets our present in 2044 where Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) must decide between getting a better job or keeping her emotions. You see, Artificial Intelligence has saved humanity from an unnamed disaster and is now running things, perfectly but dispassionately.

The offer to 'clean her DNA' would remove her 'affects', or memories, thus enabling her to undertake work tasks logically, free of emotional influence. Through this process we see two earlier incarnations of Gabrielle - in 1910 Paris, and 2014 Los Angeles. In a none too subtle hint early on, Gabrielle mentions to someone that she doesn't want to become a Buddhist - maybe she had no choice, as it appears her DNA is 'remembering' things and carrying her experiences through time.


Seydoux shimmers in each time period and does the heavy lifting in helping the audience go along with the sometimes puzzling storyline. The object of her hopeful affections is Louis (George MacKay), yet he's as changeable in each setting as she is untransmutable. In 1910, he openly loves her, while she demurs. In 2014, he's a murderous incel who blames her for his lack of love. And in 2044, he's keen but perhaps the idea of a better job overrides his passions. Mackay is fine throughout (apparently, he even learnt French for the role) but he takes a backseat to Seydoux, it's her story and she makes the most of it.

The common throughline for Gabrielle is the fear of an unstoppable beast, something that is inevitable and chilling. I read this as her fear of losing her identity, of having no emotions after the 'cleaning', but the film's climax, and an interview with Bonello add more detail. He says:

"...this beast is simply the fear of loving, of abandoning oneself, of being damaged, of losing one's footing, of being devastated, a fear that I think we can all relate to. And this fear infuses all eras. The film may span three periods, three worlds and six characters, but it tells a single story."

The three timelines are woven together neatly enough until the 2014 edition takes over around two thirds of the way in. Here the film becomes a bit stretched, a bit baggy, though no less intriguing. It just seemed to lose a bit of steam, and the character of Louis was a little excessive, I thought. The 2044 stuff is fantastic - face masks for outdoors (but not for the wild animals wandering the Parisian streets), 'Baron Harkonnen' oil baths, humanistic nanny dolls, a mint nightclub that changes its name for the era of music, there was even an audible gasp in the cinema when a friend of Gabrielle's 'cures' her cat. The whole premise of AI giving humans the choice to clean their DNA is pretty chilling. 


There are recurring elements in each episode. Dolls - a talking toy in 2014, the aforementioned nanny in 2044 and a bunch of creepy porcelain and celluloid ones in 1910. Pigeons appear inside houses, signifying future death. And fortune tellers play an important, sometimes scary, part. Emotions cleave a wedge through all timelines, differing slightly in their manifestations. Here's Bonello again:

"You could say that in the film, in 1910, feelings are expressed. In 2014, they are repressed. In 2044, they are suppressed."

Interestingly, this devolution of emotions isn't usually discussed in films - is it possible that people expressed their feelings more in Ye Olde Days? What about the hippies? Gabrielle's emotional disasters are mirrored in society, for example, Paris under water (which actually happened) is fascinating to see. Over to Bonello (he's doing a lot of work in this review):

"Each time, the personal catastrophe is linked to a general one: the Paris flood in 1910, a kind of behavioral amnesia linked to social networks and the Internet in 2014, and the even worse catastrophe of a world without catastrophe in 2044."

A world without catastrophe. This is part of what Gabrielle is afraid of, and the crux of the film. Bonello has an idiosyncratic style (see the opening blocking of Seydoux against a green screen) and he really knows how to tell a story. It's not perfect, it could be tighter and there's an overriding sense of the ridiculous, but it's one of those films that has grown on me since I saw it. I've been adding half stars incrementally for a couple of days now.

The Beast opens at the Luna on May 30th.

See also:

There are elements of Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001), and even Andrew Niccol's Gattaca (1997).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Cat Anzu (Me & Kid)

Here's a nice surprise. I find Japanese anime to be hit and miss, and the first look at this boof-headed feline didn't promise too much, but Ghost Cat Anzu knocked the bails off. It riffs on the Ghibli theme of children being forced to grow up quicker than they should, with 11 year-old Karin (Noa Gotô) as our focus. Her dad's a bit of a scally and he does a runner while visiting his father at his temple home in a sleepy town, leaving Karin alone with kindly grandad and huge, anthropomorphic cat, Anzu, voiced by Mirai Moriyama. Karin wanders the town, waiting for dad to return and meeting various locals, while being casually monitored by Anzu. The pace is a little pedestrian but the shenanigans make up for this. Anzu is pulled over by the police and told he needs a license to ride a scooter, though he protests that he's not actually a human, so surely these rules don't apply. He works as a masseur but also takes a gig to scare birds away from the river, roping Karin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bird

This is such a fine film and going in blind might just be the best way to see it. It's not that it's a twisty, spoilery mystery, just that sometimes knowing nowt about a film is the best way to appreciate it. Zero expectations and all. So if you want the same groundwork that I had, read no more. . . . . Ok. If you're still reading, let's kick off. This is Andrea Arnold's sixth feature and I really have to see more of her work. It's set in the Kent town of Gravesend, and boy, is that a suitable name for this place. Not far from London, on the river Thames, seems like it's wall to wall chavs out there.  Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and half-brother, Hunter (Jason Buda) in a graffiti covered squat. Pissed off that Bug wants to get married to newish girlfriend, Kayleigh (Frankie Box), Bailey rebels and follows her brother and his mates on a small-time vigilante mission. Things get messy, she does a runner and ends up sleeping in...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wolves Always Come at Night

My first taste of the Perth Festival schedule for the coming season was a 'hybrid' film called The Wolves Always Come at Night , directed by Gabrielle Brady. The term 'hybrid' really just seems to mean tweaking the traditional methods of documentary production, in this case, adding some clearly set-up shots and situations, but also, calling on the subjects to help in the writing process. This film is about a family of goat farmers in Mongolia whose difficult existence is made even harder by an unforeseen event that forces them to relocate to the city. The family are led by mother, Zaya Dashzeveg and father, Davaa Dagvasuren, and Brady made the film with their input in mind. She says; Our intention was that Davaa and Zaya have agency within the making of their own story. So, in working together as co-writers, we were able to shape the story together. They would share ideas for what could be filmed and I would translate this into the cinematic language for the film. It...
Post a Comment
Read more

Audrey

This Perth Fest entry is a very black comedy with a large splosh of Muriel's Wedding about it. Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie Van Beek) has high hopes for her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) to succeed as an actress. Ronnie had some of her own fame years before in Australian TV and is now stage-mothering Audrey to within an inch of her life. But Audrey is a proper arsehole to everyone, including her sister with cerebral palsy, Norah (Hannah Diviney), and her romantically conflicted father, Cormack (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), so when Audrey's melodramatic antics see her slide off the roof of the house and into a coma, the family have mixed feelings about the situation. Ronnie incongruously decides to pose as Audrey in order to be accepted onto the acting course she had her signed up for. Nobody seems to notice, Norah begins to be more accepted by Audrey's friends (and boyfriend), and Cormack turns his meekness around, reinvigorating his sex life with Ronnie. The family feel guilty...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Monk and the Gun

This Bhutanese comedy drama is part of the Perth Festival and it follows the country's attempts to move from a monarchy to a democracy in 2006. In the small town of Ura, a novice monk, Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk) is tasked with finding two guns for his Lama, played by real life monk Kelsang Choejay. He's not told why but he gets on with the job. At the same time, a 'fixer/tour guide' from Thimphu, Benji (Tandim Sonam) gets a gig driving a newly arrived American, Ronald (Harry Einhorn) around the country in search of a particularly valuable US Civil War rifle. You might be able to see where this is going... This is satire in deep cover. It might even be satire adjacent, such is its mildness. This is not a bad thing. At times I felt like I was experiencing an old Ealing comedy, or maybe a low-key Ken Loach. The government sends officers around the country to run a mock election to show people how to vote, and one of them, Tshering Yangden (Pema Zangmo Sherpa) wanders through...
Post a Comment
Read more

Timestalker

Here's an odd little number about reincarnation and love across the ages, or more to the point, dawning self-determination. Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars as Agnes, a woman besotted with Aneurin Barnard's Alex. Always. In many different time periods. We kick off in 1688, where Alex is about to be executed before Agnes steps (trips) in, and saves him. We zip forward to 1793, Alice this time bored of her pampered lifestyle in a manor house with pets, wigs and servants. Oh, and a disgustingly oafish Nick Frost for a hubby, George. But who's the stalker in time? Is it Agnes? She's the clear favourite. Or the object of her desires, Alex, who for the most part, isn't too keen on reciprocating? Is it the boorish George, who does physically stalk in one of the episodes. It may even refer to the peripheral figures of servant, friend & potential lover, Meg (Tanya Reynolds) or wily Scipio (Jacob Anderson - Grey Worm from Game of Thrones ). To be fair, it's hintin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merchant Ivory

Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically.  The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lee

Biopics are tough to get right. For every Lawrence of Arabia , there's a Diana , for every Raging Bull , there's an Ali . The film Lee shines some natural light of the life of renowned war photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. She gives it full welly in this - physically and emotionally nude, with camouflage painted boobs, close-ups with no make-up, moles, wrinkles, rage and tears. It's very much the kind of 'brave' performance that the Academy loves to reward. The film starts with Miller crustily answering questions to a young man in 1977, and as she remembers things from her past, we head to flashback territory. It seems a fairly cack-handed framing device until we realise why it's happening. A modicum of research reveals that the film is a pretty accurate retelling of Miller's life - first her carefree bohemian days in pre-WW2 France (including her intro to future hubby, Roland Penrose, played by Alexander Skarsgård), then how she started with...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gladiator II

There's a lot to enjoy in this sequel to Sir Ridders' original from 2000. The film picks up about 16 years after the end of the first one, where we find Rome ruled by a pair of foppish twats, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Tasked to expand the empire, General Acacias (Pedro Pascal) leads an attack on Numidia in North Africa, coming up against Paul Mescal's Verus.  Once this speccy set piece is over, now-widower Verus finds himself on route to the fighting stadia, where he catches the eye of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a kind of antiquity Don King. Verus is driven by rage, hungry for revenge on those who killed his wife, but there seems to be more to his story. And those familiar with the original (or anyone who's read anything online about this film) will probably know what, but I'm not about to drop the cat bag. It's beautifully shot by lenser supremo, John Mathieson, especially one silvery sequence near the start where Deaths arrive on a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sand Land (Me) (Kids)

Popped down to Palace cinema in the city for a packed screening of Sand Land , part of the Japanese Film Festival Australia . Created by Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame), this started as a manga book series in 2000. It seems this film was made slightly before, or at the same time as a TV series covering similar ground. That ground being a Mad Max style wasteland where the water supply is controlled and sold by a rotund King (Chafûrin). An old, local sherriff, Rao (Kazuhiro Yamaji), suspects there's a source of water in the desert a few days drive away and so decides to investigate. Knowing he'll need help, he approaches the gang of demons who live nearby. The demons chosen to accompany Rao are the keen Beelzebub (Mutsumi Tamura) and the less enthused Thief (Chô). The trio head off but are soon beset by issues, including enormous sand snakes, marauding punks and the King's military units. As their vehicles tyres were punctured by said punks, Rao commandeers a tank, set...
Post a Comment
Read more