With “The Beast”, Bonello is in the race for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival

Seydoux embodies Gabrielle Monnier, a pianist who, in 1910, falls during an evening in Parisian high society on a young man (George Mackay), persuaded to have seen her several years earlier in Italy. If he remembers their meeting so vividly, it is because the young woman had entrusted him with a secret that marked him forever. She was inhabited by a fear that devoured her internally, convinced that something very serious was going to happen to her and “obliterate” her completely… Even if she is now married, the man promises to stay by her side for the to help confront this “beast”…

We find Gabrielle in 2044. After a series of disasters, the world is now ruled by an artificial intelligence. Wishing to change jobs, to find a more interesting one, she must pass a series of interviews, where she is required not to let herself be guided by her emotions. For this, he is offered DNA cleansing to remove any form of affect. The young woman hesitates, especially after crossing a young man with a familiar face…

According to Henry James

This Wednesday, hits theaters The Beast in the Jungle by the Austrian Patric Chiha, with Anaïs Demoustier and the Israeli Tom Mercier. Like Chiha, Bertrand Bonello – who we remember as the Saint Laurent was released just after that of Jalil Lespert… –, adapted in The beast the long news The Beast in the Junglepublished by Henry James in 1903. If we find a few similar scenes (notably in a nightclub), the interpretation offered by the French filmmaker is quite different.

If Chiha was cerebral and tribal to reflect on how one can miss out on one’s existence while waiting for a great event that may never come, Bonello turns on the contrary to the side of an exacerbated romanticism. The beast is indeed a great melodrama, a great film of impossible love.

The French filmmaker is also much more ambitious from a formal point of view, by declining his story on three different eras. What allow him to sign a grandiose staging, oscillating between classicism and modernity, with a few moments of dazzling. In particular in the scene of the fire in the doll factory or with, before the credits, a brilliant use of the green screens which populate the contemporary cinema.

A documentary on Léa Seydoux

If the film is dedicated to the memory of Gaspard Ulliel (who was the Saint Laurent of Bonello), it is because he should have played the role of the man in The beast. After his death in January 2022, Bonello replaced him with George Mackay, discovered in Captain Fantastic in 2016 and reviewed in 1917 by Sam Mendes. The young English actor is doing well, but he leaves all the light to a fabulous Léa Seydoux.

Léa Seydoux: “It’s the first time I’ve played someone normal”

After France by Bruno Dumont Deception by Arnaud Desplechin or A nice morning by Mia Hansen-Løve, the French star again finds a very big role here. And his performance lives up to the ambition of Bonello, who reversed the premise of Henry James – in whom he is the man who has the presentiment that something terrible is about to happen – to sign a magnificent portrait of female. And the filmmaker obviously had an experience similar to that of Desplechin (who claimed that Seydoux had taken the power of Deception). Bonello indeed admits having also produced with The beast a documentary about an actress…

Far from the great American performances – Emma Stone style in Poor Things by Yórgos Lánthimos, shown in Competition two days ago – Léa Seydoux impresses with the intensity of her playing, all the more intense as the Frenchwoman is always restrained and evocative. Like Stone, Seydoux is one of the favorites for the interpretation prize…

The beast Melodrama Script and production Bertrand Bonello Photography Josee Deshaies Music Bertrand and Anna Bonello Assembly Anita Roth With Léa Seydoux, George Mackay, Guslagie Malanda… Duration 2h26