Blu-ray Review: The Beast (2024)
The Beast offers more with each new return than the previous one.
The great novelist Salman Rushdie once defended the act of translation against the claim that in bringing a work from one language to another something, whatever that is, is inevitably lost with a counter-claim of his own: “I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.”
The same could be said for re-watching a film already known to the viewer. The ritual of revisiting or rewatching is itself a sort of translation — bringing a piece of art experienced once and cloaked in both its own and the viewer’s context to a new historical and emotional context. This is why when we revisit once-beloved childhood films, they sometimes become cringe or downright distasteful. The humor doesn’t mature with our own sensibilities. You could say they “lost” something.
Other times, as with Bertrand Bonello’s 2024 adaptation of Henry James’ The Beast in the Jungle, something always stands to be gained, and The Beast offers more with each new return than the previous one.
Continue reading at the Midwest Film Journal.