Computer Animation Arts

Summary: A haunting retelling of the fairytale ‘Beauty and the Beast’ directed by French poet and novelist Jean Cocteau. Lost in a forest, a Merchant comes across a mysterious castle. He discovers the owner is a Monster-half-human, half-beast. The Merchants daughter – Belle, gives herself to the Beast in order to save her father’s life. While the literal interpretation of the ‘beauty within’ perhaps stands as the films forefront message. The films imagery and story is open to numerous interpretations. Analysis: “Psychologists have suggested that the motifs of horror in the early part of “Beauty and the Beast” reflect a maiden’s anxiety about heterosexual intimacy, and the tale’s termination of these motifs suggest a re-evaluation of those attitudes when an intimacy that had first seemed disgusting is now desirable. Cocteau’s prolongation of these ghastly motifs in his film precludes such a rapid and easy revision of these attitudes; heterosexual intimacy remains horrific, repulsive,...