If you know my film tastes, you know that I am not much of a fan of animated films. To me they are typically heavy handed morality tales and they employ the use of stereotypes and cliches to tell their story. To my great surprise though, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, Disney, 1991) is quite entertaining and not once did I feel my usual prejudices against animated film.
The film does follow the traditional fairy tale narrative and is of course a morality tale when all is stripped away. Unlike most animated films though, this morality isn't pushed down out throats in a heavy handed way. The narrative plays itself out without any forced feeling. I liked the characters of Belle and the Beast and all of the supporting characters worked. I did notice that of the supporting characters not one is more featured than the rest, and this might be a reason why I didn't feel such a heavy handed push. To me it is often these characters which are not used deftly as they push the agenda to the main characters and this is what tends to give me pause in regards to these films.
And a deft touch is used throughout this film skillfully by it's directors. The shot composition is elegantly reminiscent of German Expressionism and the art direction hearkens back to the early days of horror films. I loved watching the scenes in the Beast's accursed castle. And though this film is animated (and cinematography should not be a category) there were some definite movements with the camera that left me genuinely impressed. Trousdale and Wise did an amazing job and obviously know their film history.
The final really great thing about the film was it's beautiful songs. Of course the title song by Angela Lansbury is great but Gaston's song in the tavern was remarkable. Just listening to the lyrics made me laugh, so intelligently written.
I'm not much of an animation fan, but this film easily zooms to the top of my personal list of animated films in which I do love.
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