La Belle et la Bête

Josette Day and Jean Marais as the title characters.

 

Finally saw Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) after years of it sitting on my to-be-watched list. I saw it on HBOmax and it's usually on the Criterion Channel as well. The story moves along at a decent pace and has enough weirdness throughout to keep me interested. I especially like the moving heads of the sculptures. What impressed me was how much it felt like a Hollywood picture of the same era. Cocteau's Orpheus (1950), on the other hand feels much more like an indie film. Is it the budget? Or is Beauty's surrealism subsumed by the fairy tale nature of the story while that of Orpheus stands out in sharper contrast, affecting our biases? I recommend this film to people who have exactly my tastes.