The Beast: A Dreamlike Romance of Doomed Love and Artificial Intelligence
Bertrand Bonello’s latest film, The Beast, is a wildly ambitious, century-spanning romance that weaves a bewitching spell on its audience. This French and English-language story of doomed love, subconscious fears, and pigeon-based symbolism is not for the faint of heart. But for those willing to submit to its looping structure and beguiling dream logic, The Beast offers a luxuriant melancholy that will leave you breathless.
At the center of this enigmatic tale is Léa Seydoux, who plays the shape-shifting Gabrielle Monnier in three different time periods. In 1910, she’s a celebrated pianist and society beauty in Paris; in 2014, she’s an aspiring model and actor in Los Angeles; and in 2044, she’s a woman living in an AI-controlled society where to be fully human is to be a lower-status entity.
The choking grip of artificial intelligence on humanity is the starting point for Bertrand Bonello’s wildly ambitious, century-spanning story of doomed romance, subconscious fears, and pigeon-based symbolism.
The production and costume design departments work in tandem to create an oppressively tasteful coldness in the look of the 2044 section of the picture. Characters dress in emotion-dampening shades of muted beige and taupe; the architecture is all clean lines and no clutter, as though all the personality and individuality has been stripped from the world.
A world where humanity is a lower-status entity
Immersed in a bath of what looks like oil, Gabrielle submits to a robotic probe in her ear and a tour of the trauma accumulated during her past lives. It’s a haunting image that evokes Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, another film that pushes the sci-fi genre into uncharted territory.
Certain themes and elements become apparent throughout the film. There’s the pigeon, for instance, a signifier of an imminent death in the household, according to a fortune-teller. Dolls are another motif, from the flammable celluloid figures of 1910, created in a factory owned by Gabrielle’s husband, to Kelly, a slightly sinister android doll companion for 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. His character serves as a thread that weaves the three timelines together, adding to the sense of unease and disorientation that permeates the film.
A doomed romance across time and space
The Beast is a film that defies easy categorization. It’s a romance, a sci-fi epic, and a psychological thriller all at once. It’s a film that will leave you questioning the nature of humanity and our relationship with technology. And it’s a film that will haunt you long after the credits roll.
A film that will haunt you long after the credits roll
