-1. Before getting started.
I remember childhood as a time when cable TV penetration was very low. It was around when I was in kindergarten, so around 1996, 1995. I don't remember exactly when, but from a very young age there was a cable TV set-top box at home, so all day long I enjoyed an abundance of cartoons through cartoon channels like Tooniverse. Thanks to that, I have no memory of being interested in cartoons like 'Disney Cartoon Garden'. Some might know, but at the time Tooniverse aired cartoons from the Brave series like Matchless Warrior Raijin-Oh, and I watched them eagerly. As a result, there are few things I know about Disney animation. At most what I know is 'Toy Story' and 'Aladdin'. I mean those are the only two animated films I've properly watched. I didn't properly watch The Lion King, and I didn't watch Tarzan either. So how could I have held conversations about cartoons with friends in childhood.
'Beauty and the Beast' was no different. I encountered this story for the first time this year at age 26. Of course, even just looking at the 'title' you can roughly infer that it'll be a story where the 'Beast' falls in love with a beauty and that ultimately turns the 'Beast' into a 'human', but I had no way of knowing concretely why he became a beast or why the 'beauty' is a 'beauty'—and through this film I was able to resolve those questions. I originally try to avoid films that follow the mainstream, that is, films watched as a trend. So this film doesn't suit my disposition, but I ended up watching it because I was trying to watch a film together with my younger cousins. This piece's themes are 'upbringing, the helper, shared resonance, freedom'. Probably, the readers of this piece will mostly know this film's story. I'll note in advance that the writing contains a lot of the film's story.
1. Upbringing
1) An environment where the mother dies early / the father's education
Belle mademoiselle and the Beast had similar upbringings. Both lost their mothers early. The timing differs, of course. And they're both people raised under only a 'father'. But the results are very different. Belle grows up as a woman who reads 'books'. As Belle's father says, Belle hears the assessment 'odd' from the villagers, but to Belle, who agonizes over this, he says, 'In a narrow village, people's thinking is narrow too.' Life in Paris—Belle's father, who can read letters, is one of the few 'intellectuals' in the village. So this serves as grounds for grasping that Belle's household is one with a somewhat different atmosphere.
If we look at how the 'Beast' is, he's revealed to have lost his mother early under a cold father. The Beast after losing his mother didn't grow up properly. He failed to grow into an upright person. Through the 'curse' he received as he tried to throw out an old woman who, during a banquet, had held out a 'rose', we can grasp the Beast's past self, who judged people only by their appearance. Moreover, the banquet's appearance is quite hedonistic. Excessive luxury and splendor were shown at the banquet. The situation presented of countless women wearing identical clothes in order to marry the 'prince' was meant, through that part, to reveal and criticize the prince's past. The difference is that the prince lost even his father, while Belle had a father. The fact that Belle has a 'father' makes us consider that there's still someone to tell her bits of her mother's story, and at the same time that she's still within her 'father's embrace'.
But in that, within the song Belle sings while confined in the 'castle', she contemplates how different it is from the world she'd thought of until now and what 'freedom' is—so the 'castle', which was the Beast's upbringing environment, is revealed as another space in which Belle grows. There's the 'castle' as a space without a father, and that castle is a space where she must think about and decide everything on her own, not a space where she grows with someone's help. So the castle appears first as a space of luxury, then later as a forgotten space, and after that as a space of growth. At the end of the story it's a space of harmony.
2) Letters
There are a few points at which Belle and the villagers are 'differentiated'. Outwardly, the color of clothing differs. Blue is a color no one wears. The only one wearing this blue is the 'Beast'. Everyone else appears wearing white, pink, red, and low-toned, drab colors. Besides this outward atmosphere, Belle can read 'writing'. The fact that she reads writing is one of the very 'differentiating' elements in this village. Boys attend school and learn letters, but girls didn't, so the villagers regard 'Belle', who can read writing, as strange. You can tell how unwelcome they find it from the way they throw 'Belle's' laundry—she who tries to teach reading—out into the street.
Being able to read 'letters' can be seen as a symbol of the upper class, the same as in the West probably. Because the prostitutes who tempt Gaston didn't seem like they'd be able to read. And it's also a peculiar part that thanks to reading 'writing' like this, she's able to open a conversation with the Beast. If she hadn't been able to read, would she have talked about the contents of Shakespeare's books, and would she have shown interest in the library inside the Beast's castle? In other words, knowing how to read reveals—simply but importantly—something that goes beyond merely being 'different'. That is, this contains to a certain degree the gender discrimination that occurs within society (women don't need to read), and Belle appears as a protagonist who rejects this.
3) The village: 'People in narrow places think narrowly too.'
Within the words calling 'Belle' strange lies the fact that girls who read writing like Belle were rare. Paris is revealed 'indirectly' in the film as a broad space with diverse thinking. Well, this is similar today too. 'Paris' feels like a symbol of freedom, and it gives the thought that there really is a more free atmosphere there. But Belle's village looks small, and it's hard to find as much 'freedom' as Belle thinks of. It's a place that doesn't have many of the 'books' she wants, so at most the books in the village number no more than 10. No one tries to know writing, and as a result the village's level or possibility of change is very hard to find. In this situation, the villagers' thinking can't help but be narrow.
But the part I didn't quite understand is that the 'freedom' Belle wants seemed to refer to a village atmosphere that accepts her and doesn't call her strange—yet ironically, the 'castle' is a place 'without' such people's evaluation, not a place where people acknowledge her. In fact, that's why, even if Belle falls in love with the Beast and the people regain their memories and are freed from the curse, the very fact that people regard the woman 'Belle' as strange doesn't itself change. In other words, it's hard to see her as having escaped the narrow village and gone to a broader space. This part feels a bit disappointing. I'm not sure whether it's appropriate for a Disney film to even talk about this part. But I think it's necessary to grasp how the protagonist Belle's attempt to escape it is revealed in this film. Because escaping the narrow space and going to a bigger space (the only big space revealed was Paris) would also have been one direction, and the fact that she gives up going to a bigger space because of love came across as a bit disappointing. I had a bit of regret over whether it was a structure that could only follow the predetermined development.
2. Subject Matter
- The subject matter of books - a channel of conversation (Shakespeare)
The two protagonists' conversation begins with Shakespeare. In fact, the love of Shakespeare in English-language films is enormous. It can be said to be an occasion where you can confirm, if only indirectly, the standing Shakespeare's works hold, and for Belle, who likes 'books', an opportunity comes to relieve her boredom through the various books inside the castle. The biggest reason Belle goes around 'alone' in the village and gets called 'odd' is precisely 'reading books', and being able to read books means being able to read letters, which also means being able to gain more knowledge. Because there wasn't a single person in the village who could understand her, she becomes interested in the 'Beast', who can read books.
Because 'books' soon become a channel of conversation just for the two of them, it's possible to guess that conversation between the two will increase afterward. And in terms of content too, the two stroll through the garden in front of the castle while the Beast listens beside her to Belle's reading, and the 'intellectual desire' that hadn't been satisfied can now be satisfied in the castle, a confined space. Without the link of 'books', the two would be fated to be unable to connect. As the Beast reads books and, through conversation with Belle, begins little by little to open his heart, the way the snow stops and sunlight gradually comes into the garden around the castle seems to be an indirect expression of the fact that the Beast's mindset and condition affect even that space's weather. In any case, the weather clearing means the Beast's heart is opening little by little, and as a result the relationship between Belle and the Beast also gradually progresses—and in that process 'books' play a key role.
3. Can One Be Happy Without Freedom
The question Belle has as she gazes outside after dancing together with the Beast is precisely the question of 'whether one can be happy without freedom'. The question of whether one can really be happy without freedom is, in fact, no exaggeration to call the whole of this story. The reason is that 'freedom' can be seen as having been everything in terms of value to Belle until then. Belle, who wanted to escape the small village and go to a bigger place to resolve her inner desire to live in a freer atmosphere without being regarded as strange, comes to have an alternative space called the 'castle'. But this castle is a little different. The 'freedom' in the castle is a freedom in which no one interferes. I'm not sure whether Belle really wanted 'freedom obtainable through non-interference'. She wanted to go to a broader space; whether she wished for a non-interfering space is unclear. In my opinion, Belle probably just wished not to be called 'odd', because the castle is a space where such things don't happen in the first place.
The other-meaning question about 'freedom' can be seen as 'the question of whether continuing to live in this castle is truly happy'. In the scenes of continuously staying only inside the castle after entering it, such agonizing actually wasn't revealed, but the question that appears after finishing the dance together can be seen as a human question that arises in the 'happiest moment'.
The reason thinking about whether one can be happy without 'freedom' connects with recalling her own father is that, by being in the 'castle', she lost the freedom she enjoyed in the village and the existence called 'father'. Therefore the freedom enjoyed in the village corresponds to a limited freedom enjoyed in the 'village' but under the father's care, while the 'freedom' in the castle is closer to a selective freedom led by oneself, not a freedom provided by the father.
I see Belle's choice as having been determined by freedom. Even her coming back to find the Beast again and saying 'I love you'. In any case the Beast saves her father, and then she goes to save the 'Beast' whom people are going to kill. There's clearly no talk of freedom here. But whether to accept this as a free choice or as lacking such deliberation is an individual's freedom. I don't see Belle's choice as a choice reached after 'deliberation'. There's no trace of deliberation. It's simply that she'd grown close to the Beast and made the choice to go clear up the misunderstanding of the people going to kill the Beast. In that part I find it hard to be sure where 'Belle's' direction of deliberation went, and so I felt disappointment in the development.
4. Characters
1) Agathe
In fact, I think one could predict to some degree that 'Agathe' might be a fairy. But the fact that Agathe couldn't help the father was, I suspect, an attempt to reveal an intention to test those villagers to the end. Because the villagers, too, are objects of the curse all the same. As I only learned later, the people who worked inside the castle and the villagers are in 'family relationships', and they don't even remember those family relationships at all, and also because the prince's wicked character is something for which the villagers, who are also the butlers working inside the castle, bear responsibility. But the fact that the villagers didn't repent, yet they too become objects of forgiveness, is disappointing. It wasn't revealed at all whether they truly accepted Belle, whether they accepted the value of difference or 'Belle' as a self-directed woman, so the fact that Agathe just lumped them in and forgave them felt a bit sloppy.
2) Gaston He's the one who, fallen for Belle's beauty, wants to marry her. But he appears as a character whose personality isn't agreeable, whose empathy is much lacking, and who is positioned as the village's best hunter. He talks about all the deer antlers in the tavern as 'ones he caught himself', and displays an ignorance of not reading anything like books. All he can trust is his own appearance and physical strength. But Belle doesn't like such an ignorant, merely strong man. That's why she doesn't accept Gaston.
Gaston's image can generally be confirmed through his 'red clothing', and the 'red' spoken of in the West is generally a color far from the rational—instinctive, reliant on intuition, and lacking cool judgment. I'm not sure whether this theory is correct, but looking at the series of actions Gaston performed, it doesn't seem entirely wrong. And as his friend says, isn't the 'monster' truly not in the castle but in the procession heading toward the castle? Probably, men with a character like Gaston's left this film having gained many realizations, I suspect.
5. Appearance Isn't Everything.
Those who watched attentively will remember, but there's a difference between the scene in the intro explaining the Beast's tragedy and the scene at the end where everyone dances together. It's precisely the presence or absence of 'makeup'. Wearing makeup means intending to look at appearance, and not wearing makeup means makeup is no longer needed. Belle telling the Beast she loves him also carries the message that, unlike the past when she was frightened by appearance, she loves the existence itself beyond outward form. It's one of the most universal messages, so it may not even need mentioning, but I wanted to mention it.
6. The Musical
Certainly there's the difficulty that musical films are hard to follow well with English listening alone. I can follow ordinary lines, but there are more than a few times when the musical numbers are hard to catch. This time too, I had no choice but to just listen to the ordinary lines, while for the song lyrics I had to understand the meaning by watching the subtitles here and there, which was no small inconvenience. Still, compared to 'La La Land', a musical film I encountered recently, the lyrics were simple and the flow of the messages was fairly similar, so it wasn't too difficult, which was a relief.
I'm not sure why this film was made into a musical film, but musical films, by their nature, have the advantage of being able to convey lines and emotions more richly through song, and this seemed to be a case where that was used well. I came to learn that the same songs were also used back when the animation was shown, so probably someone who'd both watched the animation and was in the process of confirming this film as a 'live-action version' would have enjoyed it more, I think.
One-line review: a well-organized live-action version of the animation, but the looseness in development is due to Disney's characteristic way of unfolding content.
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