Our Thoughts

Down Goes the Beast (2023)

There’s a freedom to be felt in the shifting modes of presentation of Mya Beauvais’s Down Goes the Beast. It begins with a few static shots of a man reciting poetry against a vivid red backdrop, before diving into a loose narrative structure, and then devolving into a lo-fi visual style overlaid with scrappy hand-drawn animation, and finally concluding with the footage shrunk down to a tiny window surrounded by a black void. The film’s refusal to be pinned down to any one style of communication is what gives it that freedom. Beauvais tells the story of a woman who casts a love spell to win the affection of man with minimal dialogue and zero music- instead opting for a focus on diegetic sound that allows the viewer to settle into the uncomfortable process of watching a situation that they know cannot end well. Despite the inevitability of this somewhat bloody conclusion, there’s an ambiguity to be found in that uncomfortable silence which the film structures itself around. Scenes go on just long enough in this silence to elevate to a surreal state of being. Petals being plucked off a flower, bloody hands rinsing off in the sink, a blood spatter stained on the sidewalk, animated scratches and squiggles fluttering across the screen. Working on a microbudget, Beauvais’s reliance on diegetic sound, stimulating imagery, and unconventional structuring makes Down Goes the Beast a refreshing example of how the fewest tools can build the most unique experiences.

- Owen Felton