Check Out Beauty and the Beast (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] for $27.99

Available at Amazon
**** Click Check Price Now! ****

Beauty and the Beast (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Review

Beauty and the Beast (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Overview

This is definitely not the Disney version. While it remains faithful to the plot of the classic fairy tale by Leprince de Beaumont, Jean Cocteau's 1946 French romantic fantasy is the product of a sophisticated, mature sensibility in its tones and textures and, above all, in its surprising emotional power. With sparkling black-and-white imagery that, for once, is actually dreamlike rather than cute or kitschy, and with a Beast (Jean Marais) who is almost as glamorous with his silky blonde facial hair as he is clean shaven, the movie casts a seductive spell. It might actually be a little too rich and unsettling for kids. Even the costumes and the draperies are entrancingly ornate. Viewers intoxicated by this enveloping vision should consider moving on to Cocteau's even more aggressively other-worldly 1949 masterpiece Orpheus, in which Marais plays the doomed poet of ancient Greek legend, updated to a Parisian "punk" milieu of motorcycles and black leather. --David Chute

Available at Amazon ******** Check Price Now! *********

Related Products

• High and Low (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
• The Music Room (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
• Léon Morin, Priest (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
• Kiss Me Deadly: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray]
• Naked (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Customer Reviews

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Apr 22, 2011 13:27:09