Tale as old as time

The recent movies I had watched dealt mostly with romance, relationships, violence and crazy humours. For a change, yesterday I watched Walt Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” along with my daughters. It was a feast to my eyes. What a tale of thorough enchantment it was! Magical world, illusionary characters, imaginary castles, dreams, miraculous events, jinx of a witch, hex of the characters! The latest technologies combined with animations have made this 90 minutes movie the most enthralling experience one would ever have in life.

The story as such is a slight modification from the original version of “Beauty and The Beast”. They have probably tailored to suit the available technologies. The story in brief is as follows. A curse has been cast on a Prince living in a huge castle for having refused to give shelter to an ugly looking old beggar woman who had only a rose to offer to him. The woman remarked that one should not go by looks and that he will learn it soon. Immediately, the woman sheds her form and takes the appearance of a beautiful Princess and the Prince gets transformed into the figure of an ugly looking beast who is cursed to retain the form until he wins the love of a woman before his 21st year. The Beast confines himself in the huge castle. Because of no exposure with the outside world, he gains beastly characteristics along with the form. Belle (Beauty) enters the castle as a prisoner to save her Father who was detained by the Beast. The Beast falls in love with Belle instantly hoping that she can help him shed his ugly looking form. How he wins her love and how she transforms his beastly nature into accepted human behaviour is the story all about.

The expressions, though animations brought about by the Beast were so moving that all the three of us, literally shed tears. The Beast’s restlessness in trying to understand a woman, his keenness in finding out her likes and dislikes, his helplessness in yielding to all her likes, his expression of his love towards Belle by surprising her with a hall of books were indeed awesome. Belle’s typical lady attitude is beautifully depicted with lots of fuss in the beginning and loads of love in the end. The added innovation in this movie is that every inanimate thing in the castle like candle stick, alarm clock, tea pots, cups, cutleries and cupboards were able to communicate with each other and when the Beast’s spell was broken, they too become human. That was incredible!

In a world where human beings struggle a lot to hide their personal worries by portraying themselves to be a different person in a commercial movie, these kinds of Fairy Tales are lot more relaxing and much more convincing because they are flawless. Where it involves human beings, it requires enough number of rehearsals to make it appear unblemished in the end. The comments of the viewers may not always satisfy the performer. To enjoy a good movie, to entertain yourself thoroughly, one should watch such kind of movies which take you to a fairy land where the world is so enchanting, impressive, luxurious, magnificent, outstanding and grand and what not!! Believe me, it is a movie worth watching though it is a tale as old as time and has songs as old as rhyme!