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Calvin wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 2:15 pm

REMASTERED PRESENTATION OF THE UNCUT VERSION OF THE FILM by the Czech National Film Archive
A newly-recorded Projection Booth audio commentary with Mike White, Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger.
František Hrubín (1964): a short film on the Czech writer and poet, and co-screenwriter of Beauty and the Beast
20-page booklet with new writing on the film by author Jonathan Owen
New and improved English subtitle translation
REGION-FREE

František Hrubín (1964): a short film on the Czech writer and poet, and co-screenwriter of Beauty and the Beast

Now, in Czech, the original French fairytale and its many, many adaptations including a 1975 rock opera by the Czech singer Petr Novák, tend to be called Kráska a zvíře, which, like Beauty and the Beast, is a direct translation of the original French, La Belle et la Bête. However, this film is called Panna a netvor, which is similar, but also subtly different. “Panna” is standing in for “Beauty”, but actually means “maiden, damsel or virgin” – the Czech for “The Blessed Virgin” is “Blahoslavená Panna”, and in fact the Czech for mermaid, rather delightfully, is “mořská panna”, or “sea maiden”. And “netvor” is “monster”, so the title is effectively The Maiden and the Monster or The Virgin and the Monster. And I think that’s an important distinction on both counts – turning Beauty into a humble maiden serves to emphasise her social status rather than her looks, and the film has quite a bit to say about that aspect, and turning the Beast into a Monster transforms him from something reasonably familiar, essentially a larger and hairier version of a stereotypical alpha male, into something truly ugly and misshapen, authentically monstrous both inside and out, and desperately self-loathing with it.