The great work of Bertrand Bonello
The beast can be addressed in a simple way. In 2044, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) is a young woman who, in order to get a job in a world devoid of humanity, undertakes to erase her affections. To this end, she will then experience a form of past incarnations of herself and her relationship with the same man, Louis (George MacKay) on two more occasions, in the 1910s and 2010s.
After the experimental gesture of Comathe last film role of Gaspard Ulliel, who died before its theatrical release and who was initially supposed to be the male character of The beast, Bertrand Bonello thus returns to a more conventional cinema in its form, with a simple line: the story of Gabrielle, a young woman who is the subject and object of thwarted desires. But the story of her story, while remaining easy to understand, constantly tends towards a delightful “complexity”: that of the clock with a thousand gears, admirable for the sophisticated complications with which it fulfills its simple mission: give time. In his way, The beast also gives, simply by using a complexity of temporality and personality, an idea of our times.
A sublime and radical aesthetic
Three times, two characters and the same story, which Bertrand Bonello thus stages a radical oddity similar to that of David Lynch. For each of the characters, a multiple identity, as in the case of David Cronenberg, with whom he shares an elegant coldness. The images of The beast they are sublime: we remember in particular a formidable reconstruction of Paris submerged by a flood, or even of a Los Angeles whose light hides with its glare a dull hostility. As we noted in Saint Lawrencesays Bertrand Bonello The beast work of an aesthete. Not in the bourgeois and vain search for Beauty, but rather in the intense search for sensation which alone would explain the mystery of the world.
Hence, the great violence of The beast it develops as much in the relationships Gabrielle and Louis have – or not – as in the sharp, cutting beauty and perfection of its images. It is difficult to give a shape, a name, a face to this “beast” that wanders around, so it is through the ideal combination of lights and sounds – Bertrand Bonello composed his music together with his daughter Anna – that the “beast” gives the presence of him.
A successful melodramatic science fiction tale
The beastthe summary film of Bertrand Bonello’s work, it is radical in its discourse and aesthetics, but it is also radical in its excessive mastery of the classical genres which it explores with sincere passion. The beast it is indeed a real melodramawith its flights, its impulses, its emotion, and it is also a science fiction film with its projection, clinical to the point of chilling, a technological, political and social dystopia.
It is therefore in this context of a society dominated by technology and artificial intelligence, a dehumanized society in which feelings and affections no longer have their place, that Gabrielle will deepen her relationship with the concept of love, with the same figure of a man whose personality and culture are multiple, mirroring an evolution of the male condition. And through the intuition and strong sensations of their film, the director and his leading actress transcend the timeless tale of Henry James in a portrait, all the more violent and surprising because it is very realistic, of our contemporary humanity.
Bertrand Bonello is completely cinematic here, as he does not want to illustrate a speech, but the clock. He discovers it in unique and changing images for the viewer and conveys it through the unique ways of cinema the feeling of this catastrophe at the same time very concrete and metaphysical, intimate and collective, over which it hovers. And as his dystopia develops, it tragically transforms into a realistic chronicle that almost approaches the naturalism of a very near future.
Léa Seydoux, alone in the world
Léa Seydoux is the key to the filmwhile remaining the embodiment of its mystery. The beast it is the story of love and its rejection, and of Gabrielle’s suffering. This suffering, the central point of his triple relationship with Louis, squeezes his heart while he compresses that of the spectator. Faced with Louis’ elegant chivalry and idolatrous ways in 1914, as well as his madness incel in 2014 and its cancellation in 2044, Gabrielle gives in not to these “loves”. The character thus fights against this “beast”, whose last appearance is also, paradoxically, its disappearance.
We cannot say who the actress or author is The beast he offered himself more to the other. Léa Seydoux and Bertrand Bonello know each other well and are working here for the third time, and their association is ideal. Léa Seydoux / Gabrielle, when she is not in every frame, she is in their off-screen, she is Louis’ obsession like that of Bertrand Bonello, and manages to keep these two “intruders” who would like to penetrate the heart at the right distance of her and the mystery of her. More than ever, the French actress makes her appearance The beast – without however explaining it – because he is a star: his mystery is impenetrable, as well as a thousand times evocative.
A fascinating and ambiguous treatise on love
Opposite her, George MacKay plays his role perfectly, his “bad” role. In fact, faced with Gabrielle’s mystery, Louis doubles his pragmatism. He embodies an existence very concrete, tough, impatient and unequivocal, when Gabrielle exists in an ethereal form. If it is she who fears the “beast”, it is Louis who seems to be the one who would open its cage, it is through him that the “beast” progresses in Gabrielle’s life.
What is this “beast”? What is his figure? The beast, because it is a melodrama, because it represents a great romantic story that is impossible, inadequate and without reciprocity, it seems to show love as an illness, an illness from which one cannot escape and which would be incurable. This is why in the future love, the greatest of affections, will be a threat to be eliminated. Is Gabrielle afraid, but rightly so, of giving in to love? Are Louis’ feelings “permissible”? Have we always suffered from “loving badly”?
We should abandon ourselves to love, to passion, just as we should abandon ourselves – what else can we do – to the gigantic flood in Paris and the frightening earthquake in Los Angeles? Can we go against it, to build a future where there are no longer these telluric and intimate tremors? How Henry James did not give an answer to his riddle The beast in the jungleBertrand Bonello protects his film, entrusting it to dizzying mystery by Léa Seydoux. The result is beautiful, disturbing and downright brilliant.
The beast by Bertrand Bonello, in theaters from February 7, 2024. Above is the trailer. Find all our trailers here.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.
