Even today, for all the tools available to film makers, Beauty and The Beast by Jean Coctaeu ranks as one of the most beautiful renderings of a fairy tale ever put on screen. It's a quiet, sometimes outright slow film, utterly dependent on the indulgence of the viewer, but given that indulgence it has profoundly moved generation after generation of film lovers creating a fan base that extends from the arthouse to the Famous Monsters fan. Me? believe it or not I prefer the Disney version. This probably marks me as a cultural philistine. My saving grace is that I can't imagine my Bluray collection complete without this on the shelf.
There are unforgettable images here and a devastating performance by Jean Marais as the beast and the groundwork laid here for future filmmakers world wide all work together to make this film an indispensable guide to the medium and the fantasy genre in general. The more I have grown to appreciate great somewhat difficult cinema the more this film has appealed to me.
The news that the film would hit Bluray hardly came as a surprise given the stellar and highly collectable nature of the previous DVD. For those of us who wait with baited breath each month to see what will get an upgrade from the Criterion Collection vaults the real question was whether the 2003 presentation of Beauty and the Beast could be improved on enough to make upgrading to Blu worthwhile. The answer is a resounding yes. This is by far the most visually consistent and dynamic, problem free transfer this film has ever seen.
This edition of the film shares extras with the previous one but that is hardly a problem. The older one was virtually comprehensive. The only possible complaint I can see here is the lack of special attention given to art direction and costuming. Even then viewers will find that the two audio commentaries, interviews, onboard docs and booklet essays dip into every possible aspect of the film. Call this absolutely must have.
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