Memorable feat of cinema

“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.” Deeper significance and emotional pertinence.

The most pleasant viewing surprise we got this week was the live-action film version of “Beauty and the Beast.” It turns out that this is a French production, a welcome alternative to the slick “blockbuster” Hollywood approach that we’re more used to.

We must say that we greatly prefer the Gallic approach to filmmaking to the gung-ho, in-your-face style of American movie producers. It’s “artistic” in the best sense of the word, and its images linger longer in the mind’s eye because they’re rooted in deeper significance and emotional pertinence.

In this French take (with English dialogue track) on the well-known fairy tale earlier dramatized by a full-length animated feature, the presentation is more involving and empathetic.

We can even describe it at times as “hypnotic,” because its visuals indelibly and memorably capture the emotive essence and significance of the most unusual “reality” of a monster falling in love with a lovely mortal—and her eventually reciprocating in kind!

Stories like this are called “fairy” tales because they’re highly improbable or even impossible. But, at its best, this production is able to make the improbable emotionally real and believable, through sheer dint of artistic imagination and organic integrity.

Some viewers may find this movie’s visualization too lush and overwrought, but we welcomed it, because it more fully and convincingly drew us into the story and its emotive relevance and significance.

The film is full of lovely images, but the one that made the production truly memorable for us was the shot of a fleeing doe being pierced by a golden arrow—and acquiring naked human form—! What a profoundly beautiful and moving feats of pure cinema!