Saw Beauty and the Beast, a Czech version of the famous story. This one stays mostly true to the original story, lingering on the redemptive power of the love of a woman for a monster. A little off-topic, but in its own way, the Beauty and the Beast story may be the first example of the Magical Pixie Dream Girl trope. Anyway, this film is shot as a horror film, so it's fairly grim and strange. The magical castle that Beauty stays in is dark and shadowy, overgrown with moss and dirt everywhere. It is inhabited by magical servants who are not singing teacups, but dark, gargoylish monsters. The Beast himself is made up to look like a bird, his head covered in some unpleasant mixture of dirt and feathers.
The film succeeds in being creepy, but creepy in a sort of dark fantasy way. You never really feel fear, but it would creep out a child, I feel. There are strong elements of fairy-tale whimsy and simplicity in it however. Beauty has two sisters who are nakedly greedy, literally stealing the dress of of Beauty at one point, always laughing and blatantly evil in a broad, fairy-tale kind of way. Juxtaposed with this is Beauty's father, a struggling merchant trying to provide for his family. His sincerely acted exhaustion grounds the story in some real-world anxiety and despair.
The film is a strange mix of cartoonish and realistic. It's very gothic and sinister, particularly when Beauty is in the Beast's castle. It's not scary, but it's very self-indulgent in this teenage, self-serious kind of way, almost campily so, as if Hellraiser had been a fantasy film. It's an interesting take on the story.
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