Beauty and the Beast

A merchant is ruined and withdraws to the country with his three daughters. On the journey he is lost in a forest and takes shelter in an abandoned castle. Nobody appears there, but the table is laid and the beds are made. As he leaves he picks a rose. A voice is heard: picking it has a price, and he must send one of his daughters. His youngest, Julie, goes. The creature living in the castle does not show itself; it only speaks, and she knows she must not see it. Juraj Herz directs. The source is the classic French tale. The film counts among the darkest versions of the story. The creature here is not endearing; it is a threatening figure with the lines of a bird and an animal, and it talks with a voice inside itself. That voice keeps telling it to kill the girl. Juraj Herz worked in horror and the grotesque in Czechoslovak cinema and this is among his known films. The design is dark and fogged; the castle is not a place from a fairy tale but a decayed and abandoned building. The narrative deliberately keeps the romance weak; the relationship is built on fear and the film does not correct it. It was distributed as a children's film, which follows the habit of fairy tale adaptations of the period; the tone does not fit that at all. Who it is for: viewers who like Eastern European fairy tale adaptations and dark fantasy. Who it is not for: the horror is heavy for children, the pace is slow, and the print is worn.