La belle et la bête (Jean Cocteau, 1946)

So, like everyone else and their mothers I saw Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid. I watched anew with more mature eyes about a year ago and, yeah, it was pretty good, although I probably need to watch it again now after having seen Jean Cocteau’s French version, which preceded the Disney one, which is cool. Cocteau does add his own style to the myth, and the mystery in the film is quite good, let’s see.

For one, I was actually more scared by the Disney version of the Beast than in this film. Well, it’s really a no-brainer, in the Disney film he moves and roars like a lion, and is seriously threatening. In this, it’s some guy in a suit speaking not so threatening polite French. Ok, so that element was gone, but what was cool was the absurdity of his castle, with live hands holding the candles in the corridors and faces in the walls, but they never speak, they are just silent and watch, which is quite freaky. The atmospheric cinematography is great, and creates the perfect mood for this film, and again, black and white rules. The story is very much the same that as the Disney version, except of course that it doesn’t have a happy ending. Sorry to spoil that for you, but hey, this is a French film, what else do you expect? The ending is quite neat; I am going to have to watch that again soon. Anyway, there are some new characters; Beauty (yes, that’s her name, what pretentious father would call his daughter this?) has some truly obnoxious and annoying sisters, which I suppose are supposed to be funny, but never in such a way as Max Ophüls could pull this sort of stuff off. They are a weak spot of the film, but even more annoyingly so, they are important to the narrative, so one couldn’t have cut them out, damn! Anyway, the film is pretty short so there wouldn’t have been much leeway for cutting it down anyway.

Jean Cocteau said that he never considered himself a filmmaker, and I believe him, because this film has many narrative flaws, most prominently; why the hell does Beauty end up loving the Beast. It is never properly explored, I guess it is because at some point he proves he loves her, but is that really enough? Okay, I admit that I am the sort of guy who never puts too much importance on narrative, but what the hell, this is a pretty damn well known story, and the way the film presents itself here, you would think there was more room for the exploration of the relationship between the Beauty and the Beast. Hell, they should just have cut out those obnoxious sisters and focused on that. Anyway, what is interesting is that the character that is the most similar, strikingly so, to the same character in the Disney film is the human guy who loves Beauty. In the Disney film he was pretty cartoonish, but too my astonishment, he is exactly the same in this French black and white art film as he was in the Disney version. Well, art never grows old, or so it is to be believed, so whatever, let’s just ignore the Disney version for now, and focus on the Jean Cocteau version in its own right. Wait, this review is over. Oh Well.

Sure, the cinematography, atmosphere and set design was both beautiful and inspired, but overall, the visual strengths of this film did not convince me that much. Actually, the Disney version was better, in just so many ways. I particularly despised those sisters, who made the stepsisters from Cinderella seem respectable. Check it out for something freaky, or if you are already into Jean Cocteau, I certainly didn’t get it.