2023 Venice Dispatch: The Beast

#Venezia80 is halfway through and the competition is definitely heating UP with back-to-back premieres of absolute winners. Certified Fincher-ologist Sasha is going to review The Killer, so I’ll just say: SWEET BABY JESUS this is one sexy, sleek-as-they-come thriller only the maker of Se7en and Fight Club knows how to do. A surefire candidate for best director this time next week and, if Chazelle’s jury knows what’s good, they’d consider Michael Fassbender for best actor, too. For today’s dispatch, I’m going to tell you about a film that couldn’t be more different. It’s a centuries-spanning sci-fi love story that answers the question “What if Bertrand Bonello adapts Henry James by way of David Cronenberg and a general helping of Lynch”? Well, the result is The Beast and it is – I’m using this of course as the ultimate term of endearment and admiration – batsh*t crazy.

At the center of the madness is a young woman named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux), who we first meet in Parisian high society in a period setting. Gabrielle seems to lead a charmed life but in fact carries a void inside thanks to an unfulfilling marriage and constant premonitions about an unknown, impending doom. At the party she recognizes Louis (George MacKay), and it’s instantly clear the two not only had met before, but share an inexplicably intimate connection. Without giving further context, the film jumps forward to year 2044, where we find Gabrielle from another lifetime as she consults a “purification clinic” to rid her feelings of anxiety and emptiness. The objective of the clinic is to wipe out all trauma from the patient’s past lives so that one could re-start with a clean slate. As such, we see various reincarnations of Gabrielle as well as her unresolved entanglement with Louis, before she makes a decision about whether to wipe it all out and never feel hurt again.

Be warned that the above is a highly subjective interpretation of what the film’s about from moi. In truth it is very difficult to follow Bonello’s dazzlingly freewheeling narrative. Things don’t happen in any recognizable order of chronology or causality. Characters speak cryptically and can never seem to express what’s wrong with their existence in an easily comprehensible way. There are many recurring visual cues like pigeons, dolls, dance clubs that pop up in different times and forms. For one solid hour, even the most attentive viewer might have trouble telling you what’s going on. But boy, what a delicious feeling to get lost in a fiercely singular, utterly uncompromising vision like this. If The Killer is the lean, mean Swiss precision watch of a film with not an ounce of fat on it, The Beast is all about cinematic wanderings, about stretching, manipulating space and time to capture a part of the human experience that can’t be verbalized.

To me, this film with all its insane time-jumping and sci-fi trappings ultimately addresses intimate, existential themes. It touches on that primal sense of loss and longing, of wanting more from life but not knowing how. Whether as a Parisian society girl or a Californian model, Gabrielle (and Louis) never stops feeling plagued by emptiness and can’t help chasing after the elusive dream of fulfillment. The humanity of the idea and the futility of their endeavors struck me on a visceral level. Earlier this year, Henry James’ novella The Beast in the Jungle on which this film is based was adapted into an eponymous film by Austrian director Patric Chiha that I’m also a huge fan of. It’s a more linear, accessible rendering of the source material that centers around a night club. Decade after decade, the characters dance the night away in search of intimacy, love, meaning until suddenly they realize they’ve reached life’s end. Dreamy and melancholic, it works as a great companion piece to Bonello’s stranger, darker version.

Bonello has been steadily going experimental in his filmmaking over the last years. You could trace the trance-like atmosphere of The Beast back to Zombie Child. An even more relevant stylistic reference is his last feature, the hugely underappreciated Coma. Expanding on his play with different forms of media in that film, The Beast incorporates footage from film cameras, cell phones, web and security cams to create a heady tapestry of images that adds to its dissonant quality. In the section where Louis is an incel that confronts and threatens Gabrielle, especially, the use of amateur videos brings a sense of reality that’s highly unsettling. Both Seydoux and MacKay are excellent playing numerous reincarnations of their characters. MacKay shows range with his convincing portrayal of both gallant gentleman and pathological incel. Seydoux owns the screen with the naturalism and emotional intensity of her performance(s), no doubt a contender for the Coppa Volpi.

We’ve now seen 12 of the 23 films in competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival – including the German entry The Theory of Everything by Timm Kröger, a stupendously stylish head-scratcher about the multiverse that could also win the jury’s fancy – and a serious race for the Golden Lion is taking shape. With films by, among others, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Sofia Coppola, Matteo Garrone, Michel Franco, Ava DuVernay still to come, it’s going to be exciting ‘til the end. Stay tuned.