Starring: Josette Day,
Jean Marais
Director: Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau's film is remarkable, in that it retains such incredible vibrancy some 60 years down the track. It has the hallmarks of age - its grainy reproduction, its chin-thrusting over-dramatics - but the director's innovations and the sheer emotive force of the story make it seem as possible to the audience today as it must have been when released to a still shell-shocked Europe of 1946.
The story follows a man who picks a rose from the garden of a palace in which there lives a fearsome beast. For this misdemeanour, he must pay with his life. But the man's brave daughter offers to take his place. Presented with such a beauty, though, the beast falls in love - and she falls for him, too. In the end, it's a union bound for a tragic end.
In the lead roles, Josette Day (below) is sumptuous, and Jean Marais - a long-time Cocteau collaborator - tackles three roles with pure grace and steely vigour. Critics often rabbit on about how 'they don't make them like this any more' - an instant cue for most to turn off and ignore the film immediately. But in this case, they really don't.