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Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast is a mesmerising and thought-provoking cinematic experience that blends elements of intelligent sci-fi, romance, and psychological thriller. Bonello’s distinct directorial style, combined with a compelling narrative and strong performances, makes this a standout in the sci-fi genre.

Set in a dystopian future where emotions have come to be regarded as dangerous liabilities, The Beast stars Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle, a troubled young woman grappling with her intense feelings in a society that prioritises rationality over feelings.

1917 and True History of the Kelly Gang star George MacKay plays Louis, Gabrielle’s enigmatic love interest, whose presence complicates her path to freedom from her own inner turmoil and doubts about her future.

Through a series of scenarios taking place throughout the ages – Paris at the turn of the 20th century and LA, 100 years later – the lovers’ interactions are fraught with tension, desire, and existential dread as...

The Beast is like a slow-twisting knife to the side of our existence, its point sharpened with care by writer-director Bertrand Bonello and guided with the utmost precision so as to not puncture any vital organs — we are alive, but in undeniable pain. Indeed, arriving at a time when humanity is at its most anxious, emotionally exhausted, and existentially frustrated, the film offers zero reprieve as it deals with grand questions of love, death, and loneliness. Yet, at the risk of premature exclamation, it stands as one of the most rewarding movies you'll see this year.

Loosely adapted from the 1903 Henry James novella, The Beast in the Jungle, The Beast stars Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle, a woman who decides to undergo an emotional purification procedure that will eliminate her ability to experience any and all strong feelings. It's the year 2044, and it has since been deemed that humans' capacity for...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the U.S. release of “The Beast,” a science fiction film about the inherent psychological/emotional carriage within us all, co-written and directed by Bertrand Bonello. In select theaters now (see local listings). At Chicago’s Music Box Theatre on April 12th.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

The film involves a woman named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) who in 2044 is about to embark on a “DNA cleansing” to take away the trauma her past lives had endured. While going through the process she meets Louis (George MacKay) who gives her a sense of deja vu. It turns out that this couple has been together in a 1910 sense (Belle Époque Paris) and a 2014 sense (in Los Angeles). As the story of those three encounters play out within her cellular energy, the evolution of Gabrielle seems to have something to do with her connection to Louis.

”The Beast...

Our friends at Cineuropa inform us that Bertrand Bonello has begun production on La Bête – his ninth feature film that will have had to reset a couple of times mainly due to the unfortunate passing of Gaspard Ulliel. Production begins today for just over a month in France. Written by Bonello and Guillaume Bréaud, and freely inspired by The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James, this is set in the near future where emotions have become a threat. Gabrielle finally decides to purify her DNA in a machine that will plunge her into her past lives and rid her of all strong feelings.…...

This year’s European Film Awards are officially out of the gates with a not so lean 50 film submissions to select from. The 27th edition collects titles that date back to last year’s Venice and Toronto Int. Film Festivals moving into Sundance-Rotterdam-Berlin and finally Cannes of ’14. Among the 31 European countries represented, we’ve got likes of the Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan leading the huge pack of contenders including Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. Here’s the complete list of 50!:

Alienation

ОТЧУЖДЕНИЕ (Otchujdenie)

Bulgaria

Directed By: Milko Lazarov

Written By: Milko Lazarov, Kitodar Todorov & Georgi Tenev

Produced By: Veselka Kiryakova

Amour Fou

Austria/Luxembourg/Germany

Written & Directed By: Jessica Hausner

Produced By: Martin Gschlacht, Antonin Svoboda, Bruno Wagner, Bady Minck, Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu & Philippe Bober

Beautiful Youth

Hermosa Juventud

Spain/France

Directed By: Jaime Rosales

Written By: Jaime Rosales & Enric Rufas

Produced By: Jaime Rosales,...

Flight risks abound in Pascale Ferran's charming, audacious Bird People, a film that tracks the dizzying rush to freedom of two restive souls both grounded in a particularly dreary, confining location: an airport hotel. The bulwark-like Hilton that's a quick shuttle ride from Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport becomes a crucial way station for identities — and bodies — to be cast off and reconfigured.

A similar kind of reimagining is at work in Bird People, Ferran's fourth feature (which she co-wrote with Guillaume Bréaud) in 20 years and only her second, after her incandescent Lady Chatterley (2006), to open in the U.S. Just as that adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's once-scandalous novel (or, more precisely, of John Thomas and La...

Bird People

Written by Guillaume Bréaud and Pascale Ferran

Directed by Pascale Ferran

France, 2014

By just the opening shots of Pascale Ferran’s Bird People, the film has established an odd perspective: the audience is privy to the inner thoughts of each character, their wandering conversations, or the music modestly playing through their headphones. It’s an act of cinematic eavesdropping, of allowing the audience to peer into the lives of even the most minor characters. In truth, however, it serves as introduction to one of the leads, Audry (Anais Demoustier), a persistent wallflower whose curiosity into the private lives of others later lends itself to a magical opportunity. It’s the sort of magic that’s genuinely unexpected in such a drama-centered story, but the sheer amount of charm exuberating from the character-driven narrative allows the story to sink into a pleasing form of magical realism.

Hard-working and incredibly...

Bird People

Director: Pascale Ferran

Writer(s): Ferran and Guillaume Bréaud

Producer(s): Archipel 35′s Denis Freyd

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Radha Mitchell, Josh Charles, Clark Johnson, Anaïs Demoustier, Roschdy Zem, Hippolyte Girardot

Not sure why we’ve waited more than seven year’s for Pascale Ferran’s fourth feature film which proposes a sort of Before Sunrises meets Terminal as her 2006 epic Lady Chatterley was perhaps one of the best literary adaptations we’ll have seen in the past decade. It cleaned up at the César Awards and won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc. This film sees Anaïs Demoustier (random pic above) in the lead which whom we have our yearly meet-up in Cannes with since her debuts with La belle personne and Anne Novion’s Grown Ups.

Gist: An American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew.