#492 - Bertrand Bonello on The Beast

Published: Oct. 13, 2023, 1:38 p.m.

Director Bertrand Bonello discusses the timelessness of Léa Seydoux, slashers, and The Beast, a Main Slate selection in this year’s festival, with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Using Henry James’s haunting 1903 short story “The Beast in the Jungle” as his film’s provocative inspiration, Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Coma) has created a dynamic and disturbing parable that jumps between three different time periods (1910, 2014, and 2044) and tells the story of a young woman (Léa Seydoux) who undergoes a surgical process to have her DNA—and therefore memories of all her past lives—removed. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.