Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #140. The Beast in the Jungle – Clara van Gool

Published on January 1, 2019

The Beast in the Jungle

Dutch director Clara van Gool tackles the Henry James novella The Beast in the Jungle, adapting the text as a dance-based romantic melodrama, stretching the narrative from its 19th century setting to the present. Produced by Hanneke Niens and Hans de Wolf of KeyFilm, with co-production credit for Bady Minck and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu of Amour Fou Luxembourg, the film is lensed by Richard Van Oosterhout (Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, 2016) and stars South African choreographer/dancer Dane Jeremy Hurst and Irish dancer Sarah Reynolds. Clara van Gool won an Emmy Award for performing arts for 1996’s Enter Achilles.

Gist: Adapting alongside British poet Glyn Maxwell, this concerns the epic, mystical romance between John Marcher and May Bartram.

Release Date/Prediction: The Beast in the Jungle will premiere at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam before a domestic release in March. The trailer dropped in November.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

Click to comment

Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #140. The Beast in the Jungle – Clara van Gool