Beau is Afraid is easily the most experimental movie yet directed by the talented filmmaker Ari Aster, as well as another A24 production bet. The film is enjoyable both as surreal, grotesque and unpredictable odyssey and as a true interpretive challenge, in which the viewer is required to make an active effort in understanding the meaning behind the picture.
Interesting interpretative key, is that of a journey, not physical but mental, that Beau undertakes in an attempt to emancipate himself from the toxic relationship he has with his mother, in which what we see on the screen is a combination of a psychological journey and the representation of reality as perceived by Beau.
To simplify the discussion, one can divide the film into four main sections.
In the first, Beau's "starting" psyche, as the beginning of his mental journey, is depicted. The grotesque, cruel, and menacing characters who inhabit Beau's neighborhood are the various representations of his paranoia, fears, and shame, but also of his mind's feeble attempts to "make him wake up" (represented by the notes passed under the doorway of his apartment). It is particularly interesting how, in order to enter his home, these characters wait for Beau to leave the glass door open, which they instead break through to exit the building. This shows how, intrusive thoughts completely dismantle the mind's defenses after managing to penetrate even once, leaving them destroyed to break in again and again, but more and more easily.
The second and third parts, that is, the momentary settling of the protagonist first in a new home, and later in a "home that is not a home" (the forest), represent the slow process by which Beau realizes how, building his own satisfying life, his own family, and his own path, implies the need to free himself from the conditioning of his mother, as much as of his cowardice and passivity.
The fourth and final part, the confrontation with his mother, leads to Beau's "killing of his mother," but also to his final and total undoing in his eventual inability to defend himself from her "immortal" judgment.
For those who are no strangers to mental health issues, the incredible work of writing and staging, and of portraying a fractured psyche, is evident.
While the movie does have flaws, including its somewhat exaggerated length, Beau is Afraid is a film that unabashedly discusses and addresses many of the most intrinsic fears of the human soul, exploring yes a sick and co-dependent relationship between mother and son, but also the human terrors that nurtured and engendered it.
Even in one of the most grotesque scenes, that of the identification of Beau's "monster in the attic" in the form of a giant, monstrous penis, while delirious, is but a nightmarish image of many sad truths inside Beau's heart: his fear of the other is in there, his lack of a father figure is in there, his inability to grow up, his having been emasculated when he was just a child, his mother's obsession with the risk of "being replaced by another woman", his fear of not being allowed to create his own family, his anger, shame, disgust, and guilt, are all represented in that one almost ridiculous and senseless figure.
Although it may be a difficult film, and not a particularly commercial one, Ari Aster has managed to create a truly profound, absurd, complex, and unique product, memorable and powerful, and it is fortunate that there are production companies like A24 ready to believe and invest in such projects.
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