Reviewing - The Beauty And The Beast Trilogy
Regarded as one of the greatest films in Disney's history, Beauty and the Beast is a masterpiece of the Disney Renaissance with its stunning animation, its unforgettable music, and its timeless story. Its sequels pale in comparison to the original, but if Belle is the only princess for you, these are the films to watch.
Beauty and the Beast (*****)
In which a young man with excessive hair is horrified to learn that a young woman he likes has discovered his secret flower room
A masterpiece from start to finish, Beauty and the Beast shows us Disney at its finest.
Disney’s next film after The Little Mermaid was The Rescuers Down Under, which was basically unremarkable except for the fact that it was the first Disney film to fully use the CAPS system. Essentially, the CAPS system is what makes Disney Renaissance films so much brighter and sharper than their predecessors. It’s a fusion of modern technology with traditional animation, allowing animators to fill their pencilling with vibrant colours and beautiful shading with relative ease. Beauty and the Beast was the second Disney film to use CAPS, and it’s clear from the opening song ‘Belle’ how big of a deal this is. Belle’s little town is bright and clear – gone are the scratchy sketches of 101 Dalmatians and the darker aesthetic of The Rescuers. Belle herself pops off of the screen thanks to the shading, and her movements are fluid and lifelike. Without gushing too much about it, it’s just a beautiful sequence. And that’s only the first scene.
Everyone remembers the ballroom scene from this movie – probably even the people who haven’t even seen the whole film. It’s an absolutely iconic moment of cinema, when Belle and the Beast dance in this grand, majestic space like they’re the only two people in the world. What makes this scene so revolutionary has to do once again with the blending of traditional animation with modern techniques. There’s a shot that starts at the ceiling of the ballroom, looking down on the dancers. Then the camera gracefully swoops down until it’s right next to them, where it continues to dip and spin around them like it’s part of the dance. A shot like that would’ve been impossible in years past. You’ll never find such a dynamic shot in Disney’s earlier works. This shot was only possible because the ballroom itself was CGI and the characters were traditionally animated. Mixing the two forms together was what made this scene happen, and it’s absolutely stunning.
Even silently, the movie would be a marvel to watch. But you can’t talk about this film without talking about the music. Alan Menken, the mastermind behind the music for The Little Mermaid, returned to give us a smorgasbord of hits. Be Our Guest is an absolute showstopper, and Gaston’s self-titled song is a riotous good time. It’s the music that really makes this period of Disney history earn the term ‘renaissance’, because it’s not just the fact that Disney’s films started looking better or having better stories. Their musicality skyrocketed, giving us films that didn’t just have one hit. Each of these next few movies have multiple knock-em-dead songs. And while we’re talking about the music, I have to mention ‘Human Again’. It’s a deleted song from the movie, but they fully animated the sequence and included it in some re-releases of the film. Currently it’s not on Disney+, which is a crime, but you can find the sequence on YouTube. We’re all familiar with deleted scenes, but this scene is so spectacular it’s a shock they couldn’t find a way to keep it in the film.
Whenever I find people talking about this fairy tale, the term “Stockholm Syndrome” comes up more often than not. Basically, it’s a psychological condition where a captive develops a strong emotional bond with their captor, despite the fact that the captor is holding them hostage. It makes sense that people would apply this term to the basis of the story in Beauty and the Beast – Belle falls in love with a big ugly monster who has essentially kidnapped her. Even if this isn’t an example of Stockholm Syndrome, there’s a lot to be said for the kind of unhealthy romantic relationship that Belle and the Beast have. After all, the Beast roars at Belle, locks her in confined spaces, and smashes stuff in her presence. Domestic abuse is all too real a thing, and there are far too many women in relationships with horrible men. The whole concept of a ‘project partner’ or a romantic interest who you intend to ‘fix’ or change comes out of this kind of relationship. Sometimes we stay with the wrong person because we believe we can change them. Unfortunately, this rarely works, and it keeps us in a dangerous place. In the same way, Belle’s romantic interest really doesn’t start off as that great of a guy. In that sense, it’s kind of hard to root for the two of them coming together.
What keeps this story afloat is the way they choose to represent the Beast. The Beast doesn’t actually have that much screen time where he’s being a certifiable jerk. The taking of Maurice is a rough bit, sure, but it’s the catalyst for the rest of the film. When the Beast demands Belle to come to dinner, the scene takes a comical turn to take the edge off of what could be a fairly terrifying sequence. When the Beast roars at Belle for having entered the West Wing, the audience can take comfort in the fact that Belle shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place – AND that the Beast’s fierce defense of the rose is almost justified. Instead of the Beast’s roughness, the film focuses on his attempts to soften himself up. We see the Beast saving Belle from wolves, getting a haircut, learning to be kind, and giving her a romantic candle-lit dinner and dance. It’s these images that help us – and Belle – fall in love with him. Without them, the romance really falls apart and becomes positively dangerous.
The sheer magnificence of this film is that it’s excellent on so many levels. It looks amazing, it sounds incredible, and the story is heartfelt, dramatic, and poignant. It’s a classic not only of nineties cinema, but of the movie-going experience as a whole. Don’t miss this one.
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (**)
In which a guy decides he'd rather be an organ chained to a wall for eternity than a human being
It looks pretty but feels weird.
The first thing I thought about this follow-up to one of Disney’s all-time masterpieces was that the quality of the animation deserved a nod. As a proud Canadian, I was happy to learn that this film was animated wonderfully by fellow Canucks. The characters look like themselves, and the attention to detail in shading and colouring bears all the marks of Disney excellence. The only animation that I wasn’t a fan of was to be found in Forte, the film’s CGI villain. Whereas other films of the era managed to seamlessly integrate CGI into traditional animation, Forte stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn’t help that his character was always literally chained to one spot - he never benefited from a change of scenery. But apart from him, this movie was visually enjoyable.
The plot is exactly what you’d expect from a direct-to-video sequel (as are the songs, I might add), but what was a bit on the weird side for me was the tense relationship between Belle and the Beast. We’ve all heard about the potential “Stockholm Syndrome” present in the original film, but what helps in that case is the fact that we get to see the Beast be kind to Belle on several occasions - and that there’s a musical montage of the two falling in love. This time around, we watch the Beast really ruin Belle’s day multiple times. Belle doesn’t really stand up for herself in response - in fact, she constantly pivots and adapts in order to try and make the Beast happy. Even when the Beast locks her in a dungeon (for trying to do something nice, I might add), she’s quick to forgive. Even as a Christian, it’s hard to get behind this behaviour. Being kind does not mean being a floor mat. Belle has no obligation to put up with the abuse the Beast dishes out. If they were married, I would at least be able to say “she’s doing it to save their relationship”, but in this case he is purely her captor. She should not be okay with this, but she lets it happen anyway. Not cool.
Belle is my favourite Disney princess, but that isn’t enough to make me glaze over the errors (musical and otherwise) of this film. That said, there aren’t many other Disney-Christmas-princess stories to pick from.
Belle’s Magical World (*)
In which a young woman apologizes for calling out her monstrous captor when he verbally abuses his staff
Disney has no right to call this a movie.
I’ve seen my share of ‘package films’ at this point in my watch-through of the entire Disney animated library. They’re movies that are made up of several smaller stories, with the connection between them sometimes somewhat dubious. Cinderella II is a great example, as we watch three separate stories set in Cinderella’s world. Personally, this isn’t the kind of thing I appreciate. I’d much rather watch the individual segments of such a film and judge them on their own instead of having to clump them together – I mentioned as such when I reviewed Fantasia a while ago. That said, what was nice about Cinderella II was that they added a frame narrative where the mice were trying to make a sort of scrapbook for Cinderella. It’s a cheap excuse, sure, but at least it added a sense of purpose to the reason we were watching these three disconnected stories.
For Belle’s Magical World, however, it’s clear that Disney wasn’t even trying. The movie is made up of three episodes of what was apparently going to be a “Beauty and the Beast” TV show. The show never came to fruition, but they had these episodes lying around, so they threw them together and called it a movie. The animation quality is a dead giveaway that this was initially designed for the small screen. It’s not bad animation, but it’s obviously much cheaper than the feature film. And hey, I don’t want to knock Disney for trying to make something out of this failed project. You made three short stories about a Disney princess – that’s fine. But if you’re going to try and release them, at least make it look like you tried. A simple frame narrative would’ve gone a long way – maybe having Belle in the village reading these stories to kids or something like that.
Beyond the sloppiness of the execution, the stories are just abysmal. We run into the same problem that “The Enchanted Christmas” has – the Beast is a huge jerk without any redeemable qualities. I’ve said before that the original film did a superb job making the Beast as likeable as possible despite the moral reprehensibility of his character. Here, the Beast is cruel and callous without ever showing much of a caring side. I mean, at one point, the Beast roars at someone, Belle calls him out on it, and then SHE’S the one who ends up apologizing. Belle has not one thing to apologize for! This is not the kind of princess we want our daughters to model themselves after. She takes this abuse from the Beast without standing up for herself. This isn’t right.
So apart from being poorly executed and relatively uninteresting, this film was downright offensive to me. Don’t just skip this movie – seek to actively avoid it.