"All Fears Bo" is wonderful. He's like a crazy dream that Joaquin Phoenix lives in

On May 4, the Russian premiere of the film "All Fears of Bo" will take place. Its director Ari Aster is known as the author of "Reincarnation" and "Solstice". Two horror films, produced with the support of A24, have consistently been on the lists of the best films of the last decade. However, for many years the director kept in mind the idea of ​​a picture that was completely different from his other projects. Back in 2011, Astaire directed the short film Bo and has been working on the script for the feature film ever since.

Following the success of Solstice, A24 gave Astaire $35 million and gave him complete creative freedom. Joaquin Phoenix, the first to receive the script, immediately agreed to star in the title role. For the film, he once again changed the image.

Retelling the plot of "All the fears of Bo" is pointless, but still. The main character is a man named Bo. He is going to fly to visit his mother on the anniversary of the death of his father, whom he never saw. However, unforeseen circumstances interfere with him - Bo wakes up later than necessary. The Hero quickly packs his things and hopes to catch his flight, but someone steals the apartment keys and suitcase when Bo returns home for a second. He calls his mother and tells him what happened, but she does not believe him. The next day, Bo decides to talk to her again, but finds out that she just died - a chandelier fell on her. The hero does everything to come to

funeral, however, something constantly interferes with him: either an accident, or psychopaths, or forest dwellers.

Feverish dream

"All Bo's Fears" is a long and messy nightmare that can happen when the temperature is high. Almost unrelated events are united only by a very conditional chronology. Transitions from one scene to another are rarely explained. Because of this, each scene comes to the fore individually, or rather, the fear sewn into each of them.

Bo's world is a kaleidoscope of fears. Most of them are irrational. Perhaps the love of the film is directly proportional to the number of fears that both the viewer and Bo have. However, Ari Aster created an entire encyclopedia in which each will find something.

Imagine that you went into a store, took a bottle of water, drank from it, went to the checkout and suddenly found that you did not have enough money to buy. Or you decided to go to a psychotherapist, and he showed a recording of the conversation to your mother. Perhaps these are trifles, because you can see the corpse of a stranger on the threshold of your own apartment, get hit by a car and even die during sex (like your grandfather and father).

The world of Bo exists according to the principle "everything terrible that can happen will definitely happen." Therefore, a deadly spider, and a tumor will develop in the testicles. Nothing depends on the main character, the world just throws more and more troubles on him.

From the very first scene, Ari Aster sets the highest degree of absurdity. Because of this, the film is constantly laughing, although by its very nature it is very sad. There are sitcoms, "All the fears of Bo" - a comedy of sensations, associations. The jokes (if they can be called that at all) of the film require unconditional understanding and acceptance of what is happening.

For example, it is quite possible to oversleep a flight on an airplane, but what is the probability that you will not have water at home at the moment when you swallowed a pill that you definitely need to drink down?

Abundance of images

There is point "A" (Bo's apartment), point "B" (house mothers), and everything in the middle is practically unrelated to each other. Ari Astaire was obliged to break the film into pieces, including visually. Strictly speaking, "All Fears Bo" had no right to be homogeneous. And the director managed to split the story into a bunch of separate scenes, which are united only by the presence of Bo.

Ari Aster makes the most of light. For example, a dark forest is adjacent to an unnaturally bright street, and night and day constantly merge into something incomprehensible (reminiscent of white nights). The interiors also highlight the differences in individual scenes. The hero can be both in the gray apartment of a bachelor, and in the bright pink room of a girlteenager.

Astaire brilliantly separates even the city where the hero's mother lived and her home - the transition is reminiscent of a walk from The Tenenbaum Family to Nosferatu, a symphony of horror. There is also a story in history - a whole fairy tale has been filmed. A variety of visual styles is the kaleidoscope that Aster twirls. Sometimes he uses panoramas with spatial distortion, but this is more of a small touch that emphasizes the absurdity of what is happening on the screen.

Giant fatigue

All Bo's Fears is a movie that can get very tired. And the point is not so much in the timing (3 hours), but in the very essence of the picture. "All Bo's Fears" - 3 hours retold dreams without a clear structure and internal logic.

The constant change in pace and visual style forces the eyes to adapt to different conditions, simply because each new scene is surreal and therefore completely unfamiliar. "All Bo's Fears" exhausts mentally and physically, only pretending that he has a plot. After the finale, there is even a joy that it is all over, at the same time as the joy of watching.

Doubtful material for interpretation

Some works need to be treated carefully (or not treated at all) simply because of the meaninglessness of this exercise. In the conditionalTwin Peaks» The personality of Bob, the owls, and even the woman with the log give ground for reflection (usually not leading to anything interesting). In the movie All Fears Bo, this role is played by flashbacks. In them, the main character is still a teenager who is always next to his mother. And from their relationship in theory, you can deduce the future personality of Bo.

Overprotection, lies, passive aggression, manipulation, gaslighting - the mother of the protagonist seemed to do everything to intimidate the child and deprive him of independence. His future fears (or madness) seem to stem from the family. But if you take the flashbacks as an explanation for why Bo became like this, then the picture immediately loses in ingenuity. It's like analyzing Lost Highway in terms of logic.

If you perceive flashbacks as false (or embellished) memories, then the story turns out to be more vivid. Still, Bo is not the most reliable person, and it is not necessary to believe him. And in general, you don’t need to believe anyone in this film - even the camera strives to distort everything.

Perhaps being subjective, irrational and not entirely attentive is the best solution for viewing the picture. So there are chances to understand it (but not explain it). As are dreams.

Bo's All Fears is arguably the hottest movie to come out in the first half of 2023. Bold, crazy, even aggressive towards the viewer. It is worth spending 3 hours on it, but it is hardly necessary to make plans for the evening after watching it - most likely, you will get a headache. But in this case, you can take a pill, the main thing is not to forget to drink it with plenty of water.