Amitől félünk

Az első szegmens a lakásban / utcán / üzletben kongeniálisan megfilmezett paranoia. Libabőrösen és tátott szájjal voltam szemtanúja egyértelműen az év filmje nyitányának, egy olyan filmmé, amire egy évtizedet vártam, és ami minden jelenetével, vágásával, kifejezésével és Joaquin Phoenix minden mozdulatával moziimádó transzba ejtett. A második, könnyedebb és komikusabb szegmens még mindig magasan tartotta a lécet, és felkeltette a kíváncsiságot, hogy mi fog következni. De az erdei szegmenstől kezdve a film kezdett elveszíteni mindent, amivel a cselekmény szempontjából elnyerte a tetszésemet. A film motívumok és metaforák széteső, összefüggéstelen összevisszaságává vált, aminek a főszereplő pszichológiai tanulmányában nincs semmi értelme. És ha mégis lenne értelme, a néző már rég elvesztette az érdeklődését a megfejtése iránt. (2023.10.23)

I'm not gonna lie, I wish Aster had stayed on the ground and his new film was more connected to reality. Beau Is Afraid is a bizarre mindfuck, but, on the other hand, I appreciate that it is the kind of mindfuck that you SOMEHOW understand intuitively without having to read a lot of scholarly treatises about it. The beginning is brilliant, the second quarter is very good, in the third quarter the pace drops a bit, and the final quarter is downright confusing. Hereditary and Midsommar struck me as perfectly coherent works, where each piece fits into the puzzle, but I don't have that feeling with Beau is Afraid. On the contrary, I can imagine that certain sequences could have been missing altogether, the final quarter could have been replaced by something completely different, without fundamentally changing the tone or the impression of the work as a whole. Still, a film like no other that has to be seen. (2023.04.21)

Ari Aster and his artsy bizarre mind fuck, and also his weakest film. I like both Aster's Midsommar and Hereditary, he's definitely a distinctive and interesting new filmmaker, it's just that here for the first time he veered away from horror and made a weird genre mashup that only worked for me in the first two quarters, the other two I found weird and boring at the same time. Joaquin Phoenix plays a reclusive weirdo whose mother dies suddenly, and strange and bizarre things happen to him that pretty much make no sense. In short the film is far from reality. I thought the first act was great as there is a nice depiction of the chaos in the streets full of strange people, the occasional dead body and some situations escalate in unexpectedly funny ways, it's one of the best parts of the film. The second act is still okay too, it's weird in a cute way and has quite a shocking ending. The third act is already very weird, it includes animation and the audience's attention falls off slightly. Luckily it escalates by the end, which is unexpectedly action packed. Well, I found the finale desperately long, boring and also unnecessary. A strange film in which, although there is a lot going on, three hours is still incredibly long and the few interesting fun scenes are really scarce. Phoenix played a great role, but I'm glad the movie is over. Of the genre's recent oddities, Mother! and Men sat far better for me. 5.5/10. (2023.06.18)

Ari Aster and his excessive auteur onanism. The first three-quarters of an hour and a few good moments later in the film cannot redeem the unjustifiable three-hour running time, in which, despite the exaggeration and craziness of all the events, the plot flows as if it was stagnant – extending a seven-minute short into three hours is not easy feat. With its most expensive film to date, studio A24 had the luxury of slapping the filmmaker on the wrist at times and thrusting a pair of scissors at him. It’s impossible that this film will earn back half its budget, impossible. (2023.05.18)