Beauty and the Beast (1978 film): Difference between revisions

1978 Czechoslovak film

This article is missing information about the film’s production, and theatrical/home media releases. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (October 2019)

Beauty and the Beast (Czech: Panna a netvor, literally “The Virgin and the Monster“) is a 1978 Czechoslovak dark fantasy–horror film directed by Slovak film director Juraj Herz.^[1][2]

The film is a re-telling of the classic tale Beauty and the Beast.

For his direction, Herz received the Medalla Sitges en Oro de Ley at the Sitges Film Festival in 1979.^[3]

A widowed and ruined merchant lives with his three daughters. Julie (Zdena Studenková), the youngest, asks him to bring her a rose. On the way to the village, he falls asleep on his horse while crossing an enchanted forest. He wakes up in front of a disturbing castle, populated by strange creatures and picks a white rose in the park where he meets a bloodthirsty being (Vlastimil Harapes), half-man, half-falcon, who sentences him to death. His only chance of survival would be for one of his daughters to sacrifice herself, who would have to agree to remain a prisoner of the Beast for eternity. But the merchant refuses and agrees to die. Julie is the only one of the three daughters that chooses to save her father’s life. She goes to the Haunted Wood’s Castle where she meets the Beast. He has no qualms about killing Julie, but her beauty prevents him from doing so. Although Julie is forbidden to look at the Beast, she starts to fall in love with him and the love rescues the Beast from his curse.

David Melville from Senses of Cinema wrote, “Panna a netvor has the capacity to horrify in the best and the worst of ways. Yet like any true fairy tale, it is unlikely ever to leave its audience bored or indifferent”.^[4]