Panna a netvor
Réalisation:
Juraj HerzPhotographie:
Jiří MacháněMusique:
Petr HapkaActeurs·trices:
Zdena Studenková, Vlastimil Harapes, Václav Voska, Jana Brejchová, Zuzana Kocúriková, Josef Laufer, Milan Hein, Marta Hrachovinová, Karel Augusta (plus)Résumés(1)
From Juraj Herz, come this singular adaption of the classic tale - an altogether darker interpretation than we're used to. Light years from Disney, Herz's Beauty and the Beast (also known more provocatively as The Virgin and the Monster) follows the familiar story. Innocent girl presents herself as sacrifice to a cursed man-beast hiding in exile, and learns to live with, and eventually love her captor - but is transformed into something entirely more twisted and terrifying in Herz’s macabre re-imagining. Aided by wonderful set and costume design, superb cinematography and evocative score, this is a fairy-tale-turned-horror story from Czechoslovak cinema’s most wryly subversive artist. (Second Run)
(plus)Critiques (5)
I’m not I’m not exactly sure if you can call Juraj Herz’s Beauty and the Beast a fairytale. I’d call it fantasy – a very decent and sometimes even brutal one. However, if I asked anyone older than me to name the best version of this fairytale, everyone would agree on the Czech version with Vlastimil Harapes. And I wouldn’t even be surprised.
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Beautiful work with an interesting genesis. Somewhere at the beginning was František Hrubín's dramatization of the classic material for a theater with a rotating stage in Český Krumlov. Based on it, the TV movie Beauty and the Beast was created first, followed by this movie for movie theaters. After several deviations during the normalization period, Herz returned in full force. In an attempt to differentiate from previous films on the same theme (especially from Jean Cocteau), he intensified the role of the beast, transforming it into a predator, as well as the role of the maiden. Harapes fully utilized his movement training, and Zdena Studenková her ideal beauty, perfectly delicate symmetrical face, and several years of acting experience. Despite some issues, the result is notably remarkable, practically a miracle for Czech normalization of the seventies. An atmospheric, even erotic experience.
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Seen several times, but after the last replay, I decided to increase the rating to the maximum number of stars. The film is only slightly younger than me, but after all these years, I can only envy it because my visuals are much worse. As a child, I was quite scared of the movie, later I always enjoyed the well-crafted, dark, and oppressive atmosphere that this matter is soaked in. The story is well-known, so it is difficult to enrich it positively with anything, that's why I am so glad that our creators succeeded in doing so.
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Beauty and the Beast is a Czechoslovakian production that exemplifies how fairy tales can be both beautiful and terrifying. All it took was a filmmaker unafraid to make the fairy tale a horror because it had horror elements anyway. Plus, it is set to organ music, and more than once I was reminded of the classic horror movie The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney Sr because of the way how some scenes were shot.
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An incredibly scary fairy tale that gave me goosebumps every time I thought of it. I first saw it when I was about ten years old and it took me many years before I was able to see it again. The film by Juraj Herz is permeated by such a dark atmosphere that it could be cut with a knife, and the gloomy music by Petr Hapka only adds to the intensity of the depressive mood. Nowadays, I'm not surprised that it scared me so much because it's basically a regular horror movie. However, I certainly do not know of a better treatment of this classic subject.
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