Saw La Belle et la Bête (AKA Beauty and the Beast) an old version of the story. It begins with a plea for us to regress back to the credulous acceptance of youth, to believe and not question. The film then renders this plea completely unnecessary by utterly dazzling us with old-timey special effects.
The atmosphere of the film is dark and magical. When Belle's father stumbles into the Beast's castle, there is a dead doe lying on the ground. It is shown, but neither he nor the Beast pay any attention to it. Belle's bedroom is overgrown with reeds and tree branches. When she looks at her bed, the bearskin bedsheets writhe. This is a land oppressively filled with wild magic. You get an untamed sense not only of wonder but of threat. At one point Belle and the Beast meet by a pond with two swans swimming in it. As they talk, the swans hiss and snap at them. The swans are beautiful but malevolent and they will hurt you if they can.
The sequences in the Beast's castle are extremely serious, extremely theatrical, extremely weird. As with all fairy tales, the establishing frame story of her shitty home life and evil sisters is a bit dull. The actors are going for a comic over-the-top villainy which is a bit tedious when put up against, for example, the Beast appearing outside of Belle's bedroom, seemingly drunk with fresh blood steaming off of him. Of course the steam is only dry ice, but it was easy for me to fall under the spell of the film and believe. If you can stomach whimsical films, you'll dig this. If you can put up with dated special effects, it's magical.
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