Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Short Shows the Film’s Surprising Origins
In my recent review of Beau is Afraid, I claimed that Ari Aster’s wildly imaginative latest was like nothing he’d ever produced before. That remains true, so long as the discussion is strictly confined to his feature oeuvre. Nonetheless, the origins of his third film are clearly traceable to the eight shorts he helmed before making a splash on the international scene with 2018’s Hereditary—including one that serves as the direct inspiration for Beau is Afraid’s bonkers early going.
Though they’ve never received an official release, Aster’s shorts are available online (the first is on YouTube; the following seven are at the Internet Archive), and when it comes to Beau is Afraid, the most relevant is unquestionably the writer/director’s fourth production, 2011’s six-minute Beau.
Starring Billy Mayo in the title role (which, in Aster’s new film, is handled by Joaquin Phoenix), it concerns middle-aged Beau hurriedly packing his things and leaving his apartment in order to visit his mother, only to be stymied when—while going back to grab the dental floss he forgot—his keys mysteriously disappear from his front door lock, and his suitcase vanishes. From there, anxiety and mania escalate at a feverish rate, replete with neighbors screaming through the walls, a run-in with a knife-wielding intruder, and a distressed phone call to his mom, to break the news that he won’t be arriving as planned.