Review of The Beast – Léa Seydoux mesmerizes in a wildly ambitious sci-fi romance | Movies

TThe stifling grip of artificial intelligence on humanity is the starting point for the wildly ambitious, century-spanning story, in French and English, of doomed romance, subconscious fears and of symbolism based on the pigeon. It’s a theme – AI, that is, not pigeons – that has been widely exploited in cinema of late, perhaps not surprisingly. After all, AI poses one of the most significant threats to the future of humanity. It’s the dystopian sci-fi premise that – literally – writes itself, given half the luck. But the eponymous beast of this story is not AI, and Bonello’s approach to the subject is rather more eccentric and original. It is certainly the most ambitious of his films, including the fashion biopic Saint Laurent And The House of Toleranceabout a Parisian brothel from the turn of the century.

Elliptical, enigmatic and imbued with luxuriant melancholy, The beast won’t be for everyone, but submit to its looping structure and beguiling dream logic, and this wildly loose adaptation of a Henry James short story weaves a spellbinding, if slightly mind-blowing, spell. (It is worth mentioning that the same news, The beast In the junglewas adapted into another film last year, a version set entirely in nightclubs over several decades, directed by Patric Chiha and starring Anaïs Demoustier and Tom Mercier.)

Here, Léa Seydoux, sphinx and impenetrable, is at the center of The beastIt’s a restless fascination. She plays the shapeshifter Gabrielle Monnier in three different periods: a famous pianist and society beauty in Paris, 1910; an aspiring model and actress in Los Angeles in 2014. And in 2044, she is a woman living in an AI-controlled society in which to be fully human is to be a lower status entity in a world that aspires to be impartial, unemotional and as close as possible to the machine ideal.

The Gabrielle of 2044 is a smart woman forced to do the most mind-numbing work. To get a more challenging and rewarding role, she must undergo a sort of psychic cleansing process designed to rid her not just of her emotional baggage, but of her emotions entirely. This is a world that has been pulled back from the brink of catastrophe, we learn, by ensuring that no decisions are made by angry or frightened people. This seems reasonable enough until you learn that to apply this rule, no one can feel anything at all.

The production and costume design departments work in tandem to create a tasteful and oppressive coldness in the appearance of this section of the picture. The characters dress in emotional tones of beige and taupe; the architecture is comprised of clean, clutter-free lines, as if all personality and individuality have been stripped from the world. Immersed in a bath of what looks like oil – an image reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer Below the skin (another film that pushes the sci-fi genre into uncharted territory) – Gabrielle submits to a robotic probe in her ear and a tour of the traumas accumulated from her past lives.

Certain themes and elements become apparent. First there is the pigeon: a sign, according to a fortune teller, of imminent death in the house. Dolls are another motif, from the flammable celluloid figurines of 1910, created in a factory owned by Gabrielle’s husband, to Kelly (Saint-Omer star Guslagie Malanda), a slightly sinister android doll companion to Gabrielle in 2044. But the main recurring element is a man named Louis Lewanski, played by George MacKay, acting in French and English with British and American accents.

In 1910, in an extravagant and ornamental vision of Paris filmed on sumptuous 35mm, Gabrielle and Louis are on the verge of a great affair. But, prey to presentiments of disaster, Gabrielle cannot bring herself to commit. Meanwhile, a great flood threatens to engulf the town and its thwarted lovers.

The 2014 film’s vision is shaky, terminally ill, and painfully isolated. Gabrielle, who occupies a luxurious modernist apartment and cannot find work, spends her time staring at her computer screen in glass or dancing alone in a club. Louis is an “incel,” seething with feelings of injustice and roaming the streets at night looking for fuel for his grievances against women. Once again, their meeting seems destined to end in tragedy. In 2044, Louis undergoes the same pre-purification interview process as Gabrielle, and he shows up at a nostalgic nightclub that is dedicated to music and fashion from a different era every night – they meet in 1972, then again in 1963.

The intoxicating and elusive narration of The beast means that its true nature remains as changeable as the shifting identities of its central characters. But if there’s a monster lurking in the shadows of these three linked stories, it’s the shapeless, paralyzing fear that prevents each version of Gabrielle and Louis from accepting and living their truth.