Panna a netvor

Presents its themes in quite a beautiful and subtle way: for her, showing that the desire and the need to become an adult woman, against the tendency to just stay very close to her father, is both a question and a struggle; for him, showing that the desire and the need to accept a woman, against the tendency to feel that his seemingly uncontrollable drives make him a monster best left in solitude, is both a question and a struggle – where these struggles necessarily involve co-individuation.

Criminally underseen and superior to Cocteau's version. Herz was great at creating these gritty gothic fairy tales, and he delves more deeply into the monster's self loathing and torment than other versions; the beast itself resembles a bird like creature ala Judex. The costumes and set designs are excellent, and the relationship between the beauty and the beast is intelligently drawn. Only in its final moments do the tale's conventions clash with Herz's gloomy unorthodox vision.

(done from memory) Well told, intense version of the Beauty and The Beast fairy tale, no Disney here! On a par with the far more famed La belle et la bête, see both, as this is a sufficiently different vision to make it worthwhile. Some of the best sets I have seen.

So, the Cocteau is great, but how on Earth is that the one everybody talks about when this exists?

Dark fairytale as they usually were in the beginning, before Disney sugarcoated them.

Viewed without subtitles.

This Czech adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" follows the usual story, but is really gloomy and Gothic and almost a horror film. The beast is some sort of humanoid bird man, his castle is in ruins, and his servants are small, black, grinning homunculi. It's a fairly streamlined story, so it doesn't add much when compared to Cocteau's version or Disney's, but it's worth seeing for the very different atmosphere.

Fairy tales are basically too simple to make for good feature movies, and the Beauty and the Beast is no different. That said, Juraj Herz's is probably the best movie version out there. Sure enough, the embarrassingly crude moral appears at the end, but for most of the running time Herz wisely avoids over-emphasizing the morality, keeps the text poignant and not too blunt, and focuses on mood. The sets and costumes are great, and one feels he really did all he could except select a better story.

Haunted castle is very moody and dirty.