A review of the fascinating new film “The Beast”
It is 1910, we are in Paris, and Gabrielle is a celebrated pianist and society beauty. It is 2014, we are in Los Angeles, and Gabrielle is an aspiring model and actress. It is 2044 and Gabrielle is considering a process called ‘purification’ which, in a world now dominated by AI, will enable her to eliminate all her troubled emotions. In each of these three scenarios, she comes across Louis with whom respectively she is charmed, threatened and attracted.
In this highly original film, both written and directed by French-Canadian Bertrand Bonello, we jump back and forth between the three periods and alternate regularly between French and English. There are repeated visions of certain objects: pigeons, dolls, knives.
This genre-fluid production is part romance, part melodrama, part science fiction. It is a disorientating and opaque narrative, but the whole work is a series of arresting images that, from the very first scene to the very last, constantly enthral, intrigue and disturb the viewer. Gabrielle is played by French actress Léa Seydoux (Bond movie “Spectre”), while Louis is portrayed by British actor George MacKay (war movie “1917”), and both give fine, nuanced performances.
It is quite a long film at almost two and a half hours but, on the this occasion, it does not feel too long. And what is the beast of the title? Well, nothing seen or heard. Perhaps it is a sense of anxiety that can seize you. Perhaps it is the threat of all-consuming AI that threatens to make humankind less human.