Hello everyone!
I wanted to watch a different movie for this blog, but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to because, with the weather turning nice and warm here, it's gardening season, and apparently, I'm helper #1 this year haha! Which means I am now intimately acquainted with vegetables all around and probably will be even more as we progress further towards the end fo April. That being said, I simply didn't have the time to sit down and watch something new, but I quickly skimmed through a movie I had already seen - and loved - and revently found a DVD of in my country! Which, for a foreign language film is unheard of when it isn't English, but there you have it, somehow, the stars aligned and it all worked out in my favour.
I had noted the 2014 french version of 'Beauty and the Beast' when the first trailer came out and made a sort of post-it to watch it when I would eventually be able to, and I did not regret it the first time around, nor this second time when it was a little bit faster and more of a jumping through it all, really. But the story has always been one of my favourites (the Disney adaptation just brought it all home that much more) and seeing it in French was just amazing (also, how about Emma Watson as the new Belle?)
So the French version is a little bit different than what you may remember from the Disney one, or even in general from all other adaptations of the original stories, because there's been a lot over the years. And I'm definitely seeing the one with Emma Watson as well, but this one is magical enough to keep me tied to it for years to come, I believe.
We are in France in the 19th century where a widowed merchant must move to the country with his six children, where the five older ones keep complaining, and the youngest, Belle, loves it. Sometime on the road between the city and their new abode, the merchant becomes lost in the forest and stumbles upon a magical domain, enclosed within what look to be mountains, with rundown gardens, a majestic castle ... and you know how it goes, he comes in, is able to take everything he wants, until he tries taking a single rose for Belle, and then the Beast swoops in and takes him prisoner, sending him home to say goodbye.
The entire family will be killed otherwise, but Belle takes her father's place at the castle and rejects the Beast's advances. She is allowed to roam the grounds, but each night must return to dine with the Beast. Also each night, Belle dreams vivid dreams, through which we enter a flashback to how the castle (and the prince) used to be, seeing he was in love with a princess, but pulled away from her in chase after a golden deer of the forest. More on that later, as in the meantime, Belle asks to see her family one last time, and the Beast allows it with a heavy heart (because, you know, love). But Belle's brothers are greedy and, seeing her lavish clothing, think there's more where that came from, and get their father's enemies to raid the castle and its grounds. This includes a golden arrow from a statue of a wood nymph - and we see the last piece of the puzzle in flashback:
the prince broke his promise not to hunt the deer, and shot it, but it turned out to be the princess, and the forest god, her father, enraged, transformed the prince into the Beast and his friends into statues. The only one who can save them is someone who can love the Beast for ... the Beast.
Belle wakes up at her father's cottage and races back to the castle, where everything is in chaos and the Beast is about to slay his attackers with the help of huge statues (gotta have some of those as friends!). Belle begs for mercy, and the Beast relents (Gaston moment, anyone?), but is stabbed by the golden arrow, mortally wounded. Belle and her brothers take him to the castle as everything in the kingdom starts to crumble, and place him in a well with healing water, during which Belle and Beast declare their love for each other.
The Beast rises from the well as the Prince, and the movie ends with Belle telling the story to her two children; we see them living at the original cottage, and she and the Prince are happily married.
The story has parallels with the Disney one, and differences, but what I loved most were the vivid colours, and the portrayal of both the Beast and Belle. Also, the little would-be-puppy helpers were adorable!
I highly recommend seeing this, it comes with subtitles for those who don't understand French, and since it's a reimagined classic I think it should be noted it was done well!
xx
*none of the images are mine
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