La belle et la bête (1946)

[kareila]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038348/

I sought this out at my local library because I saw a review online claiming this was the best cinematic adaptation of a fairy tale yet to be filmed. I don't quite agree with that, but there is a great deal here of interest.

This is a black and white, French language film. The subtitles are adequate but fail to capture certain subtleties of the dialogue, such as the delightful moment when Beauty switches from calling Beast "la bête" (the beast) to "ma bête" (my beast). Both are simply subtitled as "Beast!" in the version I watched.

The special effects are impressive. Unseen hands tend to Beauty. Statues come to life. The Beast's hands smoke whenever he kills. And the ending... I don't want to spoil it, but it is lovely.

If you want to spend an hour and a half on some old-fashioned character development and cinematic sleight of hand, this is a good pick.

Comments

[delilahdraken]

I haven't seen this movie in years. Jean Marais's beast is a favourite of mine.

But why didn't you watch a speech translation without the subtitbles, if you allow me the question? Or are they not available in your area?

My apologies if that was a stupid question. Here in Germany all foreign language films get speech translated, so finding a film with only original language and subtitles is quite difficult.

[kareila]

That's very interesting! I didn't even check to see if there was a different language track on the DVD; I didn't expect one. It is common in the US for animated films to be dubbed, but with live action, not so much, I think because it's more obvious when the words don't match the shapes of the actors' mouths.

As it happens, I studied French in school and probably didn't need most of the subtitles, but I generally prefer them even in my native language, because I process written words more easily than spoken ones.

Besides, even if it had been dubbed, there probably still would have been something lost in the translation. :)

[delilahdraken]

The only movies I've ever seen where the lip sync was not perfect were Chinese or Japanese movies, but that was because of the totally different character of the languages. For 'European' languages like English or French or even Russian, there never was a problem.

I only watch subtitles when I want to know what a certain word exactly means. It makes learning the language easier for me. But I have to agree, some subtitles can be very inaccurate sometimes.

I've seen films where the dubbing was done better than the original. The Secret of NIMH is a good example. As for something lost in translation, that strangely happens more in animation than life-action movies.

On the other hand, maybe I am just used to seeing all movies/tv shows in translation. We dub everything here, so maybe our studios have become merely very good at what they do.

[laughingrat]

Yay, glad you liked it! Which version did you snag, may I ask? I think the Criterion one (not their Essentials one, which is maybe a stripped-down version, but their standard edition) does have those subtleties in the subtitles...but it's been so long since I watched it, I can't be sure. I know I noticed it in the speech...

[kareila]

I think it was Criterion Essentials.