The duration of the film "Beau Is Afraid" reaches three hours. The first hour takes place in the city of Apocalyptica, the second hour in a magical house and forest, and the third hour in a large mansion where the buildings intertwine. This means that each hour of the film is a separate spatial chapter, with a common theme connecting them, which is Beau's fear as mentioned in the title: his fear of the world, fear of the unknown, and most importantly, his fear of his mother.

The relationship between male children and their mothers is a recurring theme in many filmmakers' works, and of course, in the field of psychoanalysis. It is primarily a matter of psychological analysis often attributed to Sigmund Freud, who had an obsession with motherhood and the relationship between children and parents.

In "Beau Is Afraid," the third film by Ari Aster, who has made a name for himself in a new cinematic world that embraces artistic cinema on the fringes of commercial cinema, especially in the horror genre, Aster separates himself from his main roots and influences that appeared in his previous works such as "Hereditary" and "Midsommar."

He embraces the substantial budget entrusted to him, which reflects the confidence in his name and brand that has gathered a dedicated and devoted audience, including Martin Scorsese himself.

Instead of repeating his successes in creating worlds that combine domestic horror and folk-horror with themes of fears and psychological shocks, Aster chooses to make a film that is difficult to classify. It is a comedic fantasy with some horror elements, a meta-film that contemplates its own narrative position, and also a character study film.

External Manifestation of Fears

"Beau Is Afraid" begins with the main character, Beau (played by Joaquin Phoenix), visiting a psychiatrist. Beau is portrayed as an anxious individual, hunched over and lacking self-confidence. From his conversation with the specialist, it appears that he harbors hidden terror and an obsession related to his mother. The opening scene establishes the film's psychological analysis and sets the stage for a long journey into Beau's troubled psyche, where the internal becomes external, and fears materialize as lived realities.

Beau appears to be dealing with generalized anxiety disorder, and Ari Aster addresses this by making the entire city he lives in a visual and tangible representation of Beau's fears. If an anxious person fears leaving the house due to the possibility of being hit by a bus or pursued by a naked person with a sharp weapon, the likelihood of such occurrences is extremely high in the apocalyptic city crafted by Aster as an external manifestation of Beau's inner world.

Additionally, it serves as a simplified social commentary on the decay of society and the prevalence of crime. However, this terrifying depiction does not take horror to the depths explored in Aster's previous films. Instead, he leverages his tendency, no matter how frightening his films may be, to incorporate subtle humor and accidental comedic moments. He turns scenes of confronting fears or extreme bloody violence into material for genuine laughter through cinematic techniques such as sudden magnification of the scene or the use of musical nature and overall cinematic mood.

The film quickly transitions to another location after a pivotal event in its first half. The chapters function as set pieces in various shooting locations, whether real or imaginary, exterior or interior. This allows Aster to explore dimensions within his main character and within American society simultaneously. He crafts comedic yet unsettling and frightening juxtapositions.

The second section takes place in the home of a couple who have lost their son in a war. However, they keep their son's traumatized and violent comrade, along with their daughter who leans towards violence and cruelty. Based on the design of her room, it appears she is obsessed with popular culture, especially Korean music scenes. In this section, Aster moves between several themes, alongside a significant event that completely shakes Beau's life and makes him even more fearful. There is also primitive social criticism regarding modern medicine and psychiatry, as well as the younger generations and the obsession with celebrities on the internet.

The comedy derived from the familiarity with the addressed themes is evident and leaves no room for interpretation. Along with that, the main conflict of Beau, the long film that can be considered a bizarre epic or even surreal in the subconscious mind, does not allow for multiple interpretations. It analyzes his overwhelming sense of guilt, the guilt that parents often intentionally pass on to their children. This guilt makes the son wish for the death of his parents, but he ends up killing himself to please them. It is a complex and difficult feeling to acknowledge, but in Beau Is Afraid, all emotions are accepted regardless of their extremity and strangeness. This is where its strength lies, as it does not fear extremism or even deviance.

However, the strangeness is presented as we see it, without multiple layers. After the initial shock of encountering it, the film quickly provides an explanation before you have a chance to reflect on what you've seen. As the story of Beau's fear progresses, one can clearly see the influence of the renowned American screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman. This is particularly evident in the externalization of the internal and the multiple layers of surreal visuals. However, Kaufman's films endure and are analyzed repeatedly because they do not provide their own solutions but embrace their strangeness without concern for interpretation.

In his film "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), which marks Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut after tremendous success as a screenwriter, he creates a chaotic world. Rooms burn without explanation, and a playwright attempts to build his world on the stage. He assigns actors to play himself and everyone he encounters in his life. He constructs a theater within the world he has built on the stage. This blurs the line between reality and imagination to the point where it becomes impossible to distinguish between them. The boundary between art and its inspiration is completely obscured.

In one section of the film, "Beau is Afraid," the influence of "Synecdoche, New York" can easily be seen. Beau gets lost in a forest where he encounters a bizarre theatrical troupe. The film itself transforms into a theatrical performance in its visually striking scenes.

We see Beau as part of an epic narrative about his life, narrated by a delicate female voice. He envisions an alternative future where he sees himself as old and young, witnessing his children and the love of his life. Then he encounters a theatrical troupe and sees himself within the play, in a metafictional state crafted by Kaufman.

This invokes Jean Baudrillard's theories of the maker and the made, simaculra and simulation. According to Baudrillard's theory, the made is a copy that is difficult to trace back to its origin or no longer has an origin because the interplay of symbols and images has created a hybrid world of copies that are impossible to trace back to their origins. The nature of a world saturated with advertising and artistic images, films, series, and commercials that envelop everything makes it difficult to determine what came before the other.

A film adventurous in a time that is not as it seems.

Does life provide visual content with ideas, or has the world become a miniature replica of that content? At times, it becomes difficult to distinguish between the two, the real and the fabricated. Kaufman utilized those ideas while preserving their mystery, complexity, and difficulty to unravel. However, when approached by Aster, they transformed into a mesmerizing visual illusion that the film surpasses to reach a new section abundant with strangeness, which will be explained and analyzed in the end.

Beau Fear himself can be considered an embodiment of Baudrillard's simulacrum. Despite presenting itself as an authentic piece of art, it is a hybrid intertwined with effects and symbols, some traceable to their origins and others not. It is a collection of ideas derived from a variety of visual or written sources. By the end, multiple assumptions dissolve in favor of a specific interpretation and a definitive conclusion.

Beau Fear possesses a multitude of visual and narrative potentials and richness. It is unquestionably a mentally stimulating film, and in some parts, it is visually and narratively enjoyable before it affects other parts with excessive explanation. It may be an early significant step in the journey of a director who has not yet solidified himself in creating a self-immersed film of this magnitude. However, it is undoubtedly an adventurous film in a time that is not as it seems, especially given the declining presence of original films and their scarcity in the current American cinematic landscape.