Tropic Sprockets / Beau Is Afraid 
By Ian Brockway
From Ari Aster (Midsomer) “Beau Is Afraid” is a phantasmagoric Odyssey that never lets go. [For showtimes and trailer, check Tropicinema.com.]] It unfolds from out of the corner of the eye like an eerie persistent dream that sticks in the mind. It flickers, it nags, it haunts, but the imagery is not soon to be erased from either the subconscious or the conscious. The film is very much a product of the uncanny and it is Aster’s most ambitious film to date.
Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) has anxiety and undisclosed emotional problems. He feels constantly attacked by phobias and phantoms. And on top of this, he has a passive aggressive mother (wonderfully played by Patti LuPone). Beau plans to meet his mom, but savage men are gathering outside, pounding on the door, making stabbing motions.
Beau discovers that his keys and his luggage have been stolen. He is now paralyzed with fear. He takes his medicine but cannot breathe. He ventures out and I’ll his phone discovering to his horror that his mother has died by decapitation.
Running and screaming like a banshee, Beau gets hit by a car which sets him on a psychedelic and adventurous nightmare from which he can barely recover.
Phoenix is always terrific but here the actor is at his most demanding ever, keeping up a near apoplectic level throughout the film at a three-hour running time. The actor’s energy is supernatural.
The film is rich in symbolism quoting everything from David Lynch and Kafka to the Wizard of Oz and Christianity, not to mention Buddhism.
The film has passages of absolute genius mixing animation and live action with real texture, feeling and emotion. The painted portions of the film have something of real life, personality, and vitality. At such moments the film becomes a living entity.
Like David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” events are opaque and resist interpretation. The atmosphere itself seems feverish and nothing is calming. The very architecture of the film and the buildings depicted within contain monsters.
Actors Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane play Beau’s caregivers during an accident and they are the strangest pair you ever want to see. They are hardly a nurturing couple.
The madcap and unsettling situations are not for everyone but both director and actor hold it all together in a very comprehensive film that blends Sigmund Freud with cinema history and theology.
The second hour of the film is the most visceral and tightly constructed to a high pitch of anxiety, and it is masterful. Never has a sex act seemed so frightening or a mother been so monstrous. Patti LuPone has never been better. Her scenes at the end of the film match those of Piper Laurie in “Carrie” (1976).
“Beau is Afraid” is no joyride, nor should it be, and it is sure to be off putting to the mainstream. No matter, this film leaves it to the viewer to figure things out and the stamp of Franz Kafka is unmistakably dominant.
This movie takes chances; it is nothing less than Mad Magazine in motion. Far reaching and contemplative with many literary and theological concerns this film does not force feed its intent. It is up to the audience to discern meaning and this is a rare and wondrous quality.
Write Ian at [email protected]
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Never heard of it, now I’m going to see it.