Friday, 7 February 2020

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE no stars

You might not guess it from the title or from the content or the lact of content or indeed anything else but this little-seen movie is an adaptation of a Henry James novella that begins in a contemporary setting before moving back in time to a more typically Jamesian era and then forward again. Co-written and directed by Clara van Gool, "The Beast in the Jungle" is a strange, slow mix of dance, theatre and film unlikely to trouble the mulitplex crowd of a Saturday night. This Netherlands produced, English-language picture is Art House with a capital A and is hugely pretentious. It's little wonder it came and went without anyone noticing. Nobody acts in the film; they just say their lines and move around each other and while it's less than 90 minutes long it feels as if it's going on forever.

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