I finished “Beau is Afraid” 2 days ago, recommended for only two of my movie goons. I can’t recommend it just for anyone. It takes patience and focus to watch and understand it.
It’s a chaotic literary masterpiece, that build its theme coherently in 3rd act.
Walk with me…
What Ari Aster did with “Beau is Afraid” is chunk of stage plays put together as a movie. Every piece is symbolic, nothing is just literal. Takes a literature genius to put up such and not get lost in it, same as the viewers.
I started understanding the movie from second act.
I’ve seen two chaotic movies of recent; Everything Everywhere All At Once and Babylon, but they’re nothing like Beau is Afraid, Ari Aster rooted his theme deeply, allowing the audience to ask, “what exactly is going on?”