Beauty and the Beast

In the cinema of the fantastique, one of the most fantastic, magical and enchanting of all movies is the 1946 French version of Beauty and the Beast. The fairy tale upon which it is based has been filmed and adapted for other art forms countless times, over hundreds of years. The story’s grip on our collective imaginations is timeless. The appeal of its message: universal. It’s a story about the power of love to set free the metaphorical beast trapped inside all of us, whatever our very human emotional scars may be.

Disney’s 1991 animated film version is one of the most popular modern versions of the story. But for me, nothing…nothing…compares to the otherworldly French classic directed by Jean Cocteau.

The tale is about Belle, a beautiful young woman who finds herself held prisoner by a Beast because of a debt owed to him by her father. The beast is wealthy and lives in a castle filled with an array of magical wonders—a glove that allows whoever wears it to travel from one place to another in an instant; a magic mirror; disembodied arms that pour the wine at dinner; and much more.

There is no way out for him, or for who he really is deep inside.

But the Beast possesses an animal physical appearance that also makes him as much a prisoner of his castle as Belle. Trapped by a curse that has transformed him into a monster, there is no way out for him, or for who he really is deep inside—a noble, gentle spirit.

With Belle’s arrival, the Beast is entranced by her beauty and compassionate heart. He begins to hope that she might somehow come to love him. So, he asks her to marry him. Belle refuses. She is too horrified by his appearance. But as the days pass, the more she becomes fond of him; the more she begins to see the beauty inside the beast.

To see any film directed by Jean Cocteau is to be magically transported into the subconscious world of his characters. A poet, painter and a surrealist filmmaker, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast is filled with extraordinary images that take us beneath the surface of this well-known fairy tale. The film is rich with whirlpools of deeper meaning about the duality of human nature; the struggle between appearance versus reality; between conscious and unconscious desires.

Is Cocteau’s film suitable for children? Of course! But it’s not merely a children’s film. It’s a sophisticated, dreamlike masterpiece about the psychological shackles that can imprison us and how we can break free to become better, more beautiful versions of ourselves. 

Starring Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as Belle, I give Beauty and the Beast a fantastique four out of four stars.