This bewitching and musical film with Anaïs Demoustier and Tom Mercier will intrigue you: The Beast in the Jungle, freely adapted from a short story by Henry James, will be released in cinemas this Wednesday.
What is it about ?
For 25 years, in a huge nightclub, a man and a woman watch together for a mysterious event. From 1979 to 2004, the story of disco to techno, the story of a love, the story of an obsession. The “thing” will eventually manifest itself, but in a much more tragic form than expected.
When the cinema offers itself to us as an experience, an intense moment where we let ourselves be transported… This is how we must understand this curious Beast in the jungle, a new production by Patric Chiha. Do not go there with the idea of following a narrative framework with an explanatory beginning and end, but rather a temporal parenthesis, which transports us in a fantasized way through the years. The Beast in the Jungle is experienced as a journey through time, bewitching, intriguing and seductive, like its two main performers, Tom Mercier and Anaïs Demoustier.
One of the strong elements of this story is its place: a nightclub, place of all possibilities and all fantasies, creating a singular and musical universe. “It was when I had the idea of the nightclub that I dared to immerse myself in this project, specifies its director Patric Chiha, in the press kit. This almost unique setting makes the film a kind of documentary on a nightclub from 1979 to 2004. The nightclub is both the euphoric space of the permanent present, of eternal youth, and the melancholy space of time. infinite because outside of reality, of everyday life. It’s a theater where you dream life more than you live it. It was therefore the ideal space to stage the story of May and John who are locked in their quest for the absolute..”
A choice in line with the filmmaker’s previous achievement. Patric Chiha has indeed signed If it was love, a hybrid film, at the crossroads of fiction, documentary and performance, both fascinating and hypnotic. Mixing dance scenes, and more documentary sequences showing the choreographer Gisèle Vienne at work or sharing with us the secrets of the dancers.
The music is very present in The Beast in the Jungle, as well as a crowd of dancers. This soundtrack evolves with the times, from disco to electro. The voice of Béatrice Dalle, narrator of the film, also contributes to the creation of a singular universe.
The atmosphere posed, we can now wonder about the meaning of the film. Patric Chiha explains in the press kit. “It is the story of a man who awaits an extraordinary event that will change his whole life. He asks a woman to wait for him with him and this adventure will tragically overtake them. For me the story of this couple has the force of a myth. It reminds us of our condition as human beings always torn between the present and the dream, reality and fantasy. The mystery of The Beast in the Jungle has haunted me for a very long time.“
And to add:It touches on something that no one talks about, but that everyone recognizes: this terrifying feeling of missing out on one’s life, precisely because one hopes for a life above life, an extraordinary life, a projected life. in the future. I wanted to make a film out of it because I am certain that this tension, between present and fantasies, real life and dream life, also has to do with cinema.“
The Beast in the Jungle is thus presented as a myth, mysterious and open to different interpretations, leaving room for the viewer’s imagination. Note that this is a very free adaptation of a short story by Henry James, already adapted in particular to the theater (and filmed by Benoit Jacquot) in a version worn by Samy Frey and Delphine Seyrig. La Bête, Bertrand Bonello’s next film, will also be freely inspired by this novella.