Habib Rehman

The movie, juste like Aster’s new «Beau is afraid», was way too long. Don’t get me wrong, I love philosophy and its messages (may they be implied, subliminal or explicit) throughout cinematic pieces. And I got the ones that were in this one. But certain scenes were definitely unnecessarily stretched, and other than the suspense, there was no purpose of doing so. The plot and the outcome were predictable as well. Despite the factor of contingency not being the priority, I still think a movie should have twists here and there. But it felt like Aster didn’t even try with this one. I feel like Aster always has way too many ideas for elements to add in a production and then tries to forcefully mash them together to make one big piece, which (obviously) ends up looking… mediocre at best. [Examples: the ancestral tree, which could’ve had a lot of potential but ended up being a (rather) irrelevant scene of the movie, Dani feeling like her body is becoming one with grass twice (once with her hands, once with her feet], or simply the bear…) Yes yes yes, I get it, “they were all part of smt big, to let people know that cults are often messed up and drug you to play with your psychosis, but… 2 hours and 24 min to relay this message? Come on, you can do better. N.B. “Beau is afraid” was literally the same concept.