r/AriAster

Me personally I’ve seen Beau Is Afraid the most at 35 times and Eddington 25 but I was wondering what everyone else has seen the most.

Now that we know that a character from eddington will make an appearance in scapegoat ari's next film who do we think it is.

Personally I think it's either going to be Vernon or Brian

I mean, I’m starting to believe this happens by design at this point. I don’t see that happening to other directors

After having some time to digest all of Ari Aster’s projects, how would you rank them?
For me:

Hereditary — easily #1.
Midsommar — the Director’s Cut is a very close #2.
Eddington
Beau Is Afraid

And don’t take Beau Is Afraid coming in at #4 as a bad thing. I actually love the movie. I just think Eddington landed better for me on the first watch.
Honestly, #3 and #4 could easily flip depending on my mood. Both movies have grown on me in different ways.

What’s your ranking?

I am going to watch Beau is Afraid for the 3rd time here pretty soon. I think Ari Aster is the best working director (by far) and i think maybe Beau is Afraid may be the best movie I’ve ever seen…
I will never find anybody irl that will relate to this movie or my liking of Aster so here I am. It almost feels as if this movie was specifically made about me and for me

I just watched it last night and all I could think about was how it felt as if Brian from Eddington got his own movie. Worth seeing for anyone who appreciated the cynicism of Eddington, but this one's also got a lot of heart (albeit a weird heart)

The scene where they show Joaquin’s lifeless cock dangling like an unusable appendage haunts me to this day.

Ari Aster said a few years ago that he was annoyed people hadn’t found things he “buried” in BIA. Sorry if I missed it, but do we know what he was referring to?

https://www.reddit.com/r/A24/s/ZCQmiUiCfJ

Well, first of all, I thought about that because I would call myself a fan of Nietzsche's work. And I am a fan of Ari Aster’s work too, but I did not pay much attention to him as an individual until I watched Beau Is Afraid, which was fairly recently. Because I tend to be obsessive, I will write down what I think here and then go back to my cave. Lol.

I obviously have no idea whether Aster consciously thinks about his work in these terms. He may not. My own sensitivity to systems probably comes from the fact that I spend so much of my time thinking about normative systems—analyzing them and even conceptualizing them.

I had clearly noticed several artistic references in Hereditary and Midsommar, as well as the different layers of interpretation in both films, but it struck me while watching Beau Is Afraid that, independently of the subject matter of the story, Aster seems to be exploring belief systems. And he seems to be very suspicious of belief systems.

In Hereditary, a belief system leads to the death of a family. It imposes itself on the main character, and the message is extremely bleak: you cannot fight against a belief system imposed upon you; you will be crushed by its irresistible gravity.

In Midsommar, the main character finds a new family (community) while falling into a new belief system. She finds answers, experiences probably some kind of *amor fati*, and finds solace in a belief system simply because these systems offer all the answers anyone could need. A belief system is a closed, logical corpus of beliefs. It is self-contained.

In Beau Is Afraid, Beau is afraid because of a belief system that has been ingrained in him and imposed upon him. Then, the same belief system that made him who he is—which is, essentially, a coward—sets standards for him to meet, but he cannot meet them without facing uncertainty, and uncertainty is unbearable. French people say, “un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras.”

And the specificity of Eddington is simply an application of this idea of belief systems on a collective scale. The movie gravitates around different poles of normativity, which leads to chaos: to each their own personnal normative system, and as a consequence; the human group of Eddington ends up being eaten alive and to die of thirst by a data center.

The first three movies were about individuals navigating the narrowness of belief systems, trying as hard as they (think they) can to free themselves from them, only to fall back into them or die. The perspective is largely subjective.

Eddington feels broader and more socially oriented: it applies the same idea on a more collective scale and from a more detached perspective. I think that's why Eddington feels different from Aster's other movies. I also just watched it recently.

I could keep going with the exploration of the concept of *amor fati*, but I think that is enough. Lol.

A belief system does not need to be as violent or insane as we might imagine. It rarely starts this way. It actually starts in the opposite direction, with very small, gentle, and even banal things (Hannah Arendt). Once you are inside a belief system, it is so hard to get out because you might have to face the fact that reality is bleak, grey, amoral, and absurd, on top of having to accept that you were mistaken. And, as social animals, we want logic, systems, coherence and security. We can easily confuse all of that with dogma.

I liked Beau Is Afraid a lot, and I relate to that movie. I know Novum did an amazing job analyzing it, but I would simply say that I think Mona is more of a tyrant or a dictator than a God. I understand that the language and the cultural references are God-like, but honestly, the cult of personality built around dictators is constructed in much the same way. I cannot help but see the political dimension of the movie in that sense.

Mona is a God only through a child’s eyes, just as gullible and naïve people can fall for the cult of personality surrounding a political or social leader—or just about anyone, for that matter. Anyone can be someone else’s Caligula.

So yes, I can see that he is using lots of cultural references—Greek mythology, Dante’s Divine Comedy, etc.—but from a purely philosophical point of view, I am convinced that he is exploring belief systems because his movies (which I genuinely experience as books) are fundamentally conceptual in their approach. He gravitates around different concepts—and emotions—and I love that. I am obviously just speculating, but that is how I understand his work.

I am really happy to have seen such a talented director emerge. And, on a personal note, I am so reassured to see that a well-known director thinks deeply without giving up on classical and modern philosophy.

I sometimes feel like we do not have the time or the tools to raise our reflections to a conceptual level, which leaves people stuck in their individual experiences, unable to take a broader perspective. I don't often have the pleasure of exchanging with people on a conceptual level, even though I spend so much of my time doing exactly that, and it is a pleasure to watch his movies and engage in some kind of maieutics. It makes me feel less lonely.

I listened to him saying that he was sad after Beau Is Afraid's reception, and I can understand why. This movie is very vulnerable. I also think that there is a kind of sad irony here: Beau Is Afraid is a movie that exists outside of norms. I am sure it was partially rejected because it challenged norms. It was partially rejected because it did exactly what it teaches us to do: get out of a belief system, be free.

But of course, there is a giant talking penis in the attic too. That could have played a role.

Anyway, thank you! I hope he will feel safe and free to keep exploring and creating movies like that again. Because, as a European, I have the feeling that Beau Is Afraid will age like a fine Bordeaux, and become as strong as an exquisite Roquefort.