How Do You Know the False and the True?
The Beast
Film: The Beast (French, 2023)
Screenwriters: Bertrand Bonello, Guillaume Breaud, Benjamin Charbit
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Starring: Lea Seydoux (Gabrielle Monnier) , George McKay (Louis Lewanski), Guslagie Melanda (Poupee Kelly)
Dear Empaths,
The problem with narcissists is that they are beasts who convince you they are “right.”
Am I right? Can you assess that? Or do you have your whole world turned topsy-turvy because some love interest or person of significance made you question your body’s reactions, your instincts, your sense of self-worth?
We have so many videos and books and conversations about narcissism these days, and why does it seem so rampant? It dovetails with our concerns about artificial intelligence. How many machines will we let take over?
The truth is that experiencing another person’s narcissism gives us a chance to grow stronger and do our own inner spiritual work. We need to test out Darwin’s theory of evolution—who will evolve? Who will fall away?
This amazing French film, The Beast, has so many layers to it, and is so full and rich as a film, that it can only be known through viewing it with focused attention. It straddles genres, worlds, time periods. It does things few movies can do, and still makes enough sense to keep you watching. The most significant thing it can do, I venture to suggest, is help you see again. There is a spirit in this movie that jumps onto your shoulders like a shawl. You walk out into the night and now you are in the movie, too. You are the character, Gabrielle, played by Lea Seydoux. The colors of the world pulse a little brighter. The contrasts around you are more contrast-y. Your awareness is heightened and dare I say, pure? You become the auteur.
And let’s talk about this star, Lea Seydoux. A film needs beauty, in some manner or form, to be true—even as it explores the depths of human confusion, misery, and bad decision-making. We can all handle truth a bit better if it is delivered to us with beauty. Seydoux is like this, an angel on the screen. What classic Hollywood did was hold up the presence of women who stood out, who could help us draw toward the power of the feminine so we could learn and imbibe the power of a story. In this film, that is Lea Seydoux, who blends early 20th century classicism with David Lynch’s L.A.
Seydoux’s partner in straddling past and present lives—all which vibrate concurrently, and not in a linear fashion (the good shamans will tell you)—is Louis Lewanski, played by George McKay. He is like a knife on the screen. A knife is a knife and it’s going to need to cut something, and it ought to be sharp. He is exactly the sharpness needed, all of his edges perfectly honed.
So what of this element, the beast and the beautiful woman? The innocent woman overcome by the secret, quiet predator whose intentions are loaded? The narcissist who attracts the empath?
We have work to do in every lifetime. Soul contracts. People we are meant to meet, karma we have to work through. The empath, or the innocent, has a heart pure and open, desiring to help another. The beast has a wall instead of a heart, and operates to gain satisfaction only when the innocent is broken, confused, fragmented, searching. The innocent considers, weighs, lives in versatility and flexbility, for life is such an interesting bouquet, and no one could be that low—could they? The beast is a parasite or a leach, operating like a malfunctioning robot, looking for a gap or a question or what appears to be a weakness so he can break someone down and become the statue or the god.
And if we take small steps to outsource our souls, our emotions, and our wisdom by relying on artificial intelligence to manage everything for us, we end up acting like software programs rather than awakened people. This is the journey of Gabrielle, essentially. She is having a procedure done to erase her emotions of past traumas. Yet it does not quite help one to deny the hurts of being human and eliminate memories of pain or confusion. What helps us is to hold it all, in healing and usefulness, alchemizing loss and pain into the abundant joy and fruitfulness of being alive. We cannot find the abundant fruitfulness without knowing the empty vacuous spaces as well.
I fear I am not doing this film or its ideas justice here. I fear I cannot talk about it without talking around it. I just know that we can say no when someone on the other side of the door wants to harm us. We can believe that a person who has or shows no emotion other than anger and bitterness is going to act in ways that are the manifestations of anger and bitterness, in small or large ways. We can save ourselves and listen to the warnings, even when those warnings come from people who seem strange, like the psychic Gina (played by Marta Hoskins). We can seek a greater source of knowing and of truth, which doesn’t require us to cut ourselves into parts or doubt our identities and the meaning of love.
We can keep some doors closed, and stop the trauma of lifetimes and generations.
And we can recognize that there is something about our modern world that is breeding psychopaths and narcissism, and find ways to develop our own inner wisdom and intuition so that we become a force greater than them.
How do you suspect we go about an endeavor like that, empath? Let’s not ask AI and figure this one out ourselves.
Namaste,
Ms. Wonderful