A woman on the edge of time: Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) in 2044
THE BEAST IS the kind of vast, conceptual movie that defies loglines. Set across three eras — 1910, 2014 and 2044 —the film wrestles with themes of love, death, reincarnation and fear. Even its star, Léa Seydoux, has to take a pause when summing it up. “This is the first time that I’m speaking about this, so you need to be patient,” she laughs.
The film —directed by Seydoux’s long-standing collaborator Bertrand Bonello —is loosely adapted from Henry James’ The Beast In The Jungle. The novella follows a man whose life is dominated by the fear of something terrible happening to him. It’s a fear embodied by Seydoux’s Gabrielle, who travels through her past lives in a bid to cleanse her DNA of emotion to secure work in the future, where feelings are condemned and unemployment is high. “It’s really based on the fear you can have when you fall in love,” Seydoux summarises. “It’s a pure sentiment that feels universal to me.”