Of all the fairy tales I read in my childhood I loved this the most. I loved fairy tales with twists and this had several of them and a great (fairy tale) ending. More than being about Beauty falling in love with the Beast to me it was about the Beast making the Beauty fall in love with it. The difference between the two is between love and unconditional love. Read on and you will understand better.
When the Disney studio started making an animation of this timeless tale, they assembled the best in the animation business to create a special film. Wonderful oscar wining music and one of the top films I have seen (and possess). I have watched this film many times but always alone as I do not want anyone to know that I cry when I watch films. Only once I have seen this with my son and we both enjoyed the great fun and humor that has been put into this tale.
In the fairy tale the Beast who is a handsome prince is cursed by a witch to turn into a beast because he refuses to help the witch who is in the form of an old woman. The witch leaves a rose with the beast. The curse involves the Beast getting someone to fall in love with it before the last petal falls. If successful he will be restored to his handsome prince self. If not he remains a Beast forever. Therefore, it was the Beast that had to make the Beauty fall in love with him, while being a Beast. There was no doubt that in his handsome prince self he would have had no difficulty winning Beauty’s love but not so easy in the form of a beast. Beauty falling in love with a prince is love, but to fall in love with a beast is a higher love which involves unconditional love and acceptance of his profile as a beast. Unconditional love takes time and this is what the beast did not have on his hand.
So, years pass and the petals keep dropping off one by one. And one day, by accident, Beauty walks into the Beast’s castle which is in a forsaken place. And is shocked to see the hideous beast and his mannerisms of a beast. No way she can fall in love with this beast, you tell yourself. But then as she stays on in the castle because she doesn’t know where to go, she starts seeing sides of him which she did not expect. And then finally sees how selfless he is when he risks his life to save hers. And then the realization sets in that she is in love with him because he has loved her selflessly. In a typical dramatic fashion, when the last petal is about to fall (and you are on the edge of yr seat holding back the tears) and the beast has given up and is about to die knowing that it will not be accepted and loved unconditionally, Beauty bends down , touches the dying beast and says those magic three words..”I love you”. This is where I always cry. Unconditional love is so rare its almost miraculous. Miraculous enough to reverse the process of death and turn the beast into a handsome prince. The beast had stopped living. Those three magic words gave it a new life and changed his world. The beast’s world was his magnificent castle. When he was cursed, the castle started decaying. The curtains, the walls, upholstery everything had become colorless and lifeless. That was his world now. Once those magic words were said, the castle becomes magnificent again. The film animation shows this transformation of the castle’s exterior and the interior brilliantly. So symbolic of the Beast’s world which was dull and lifeless before being accepted unconditionally and bright and colourful after Beauty fell in love with him for what he was, non judgmentally and unconditionally. Beauty’s reward for first accepting a beast unconditionally and then falling in love is that she ends up with a handsome prince.
The movie also contrasts a good looking handsome hunk in Beauty’s life who is so self centred that he can fill up a dictionary on himself and his self obsession with his body. He assumes that because he has done the favour of deciding to marry Beauty, she cannot refuse him. The fairy tale deliberately has this contrast to underscore the point about what you see is not often what is true for you. The beast’s selfless love for beauty comes out stronger than this hunk’s selfish love for Beauty. The hunk ( I don’t remember his name and its French anyway so why bother !!) loves Beauty because he is in love with himself. His love for Beauty glorifies his own self because it tells him how handsome he is.
All of us want to be in that stage which first begins when we are born as souls and God loves us unconditionally and then when we are born on earth we are loved unconditionally by our parents. The first look the mother gives her child is unconditional and that is what we want to capture later on in life. Its not so easy. We rarely accept people for what they are. We are constantly trying to change the people in our lives and therefore everything we do whether its friendship or love or any relationship its always conditional and therefore they do not really last long are even if they do there are issues. It is difficult to love unconditionally but then it makes everything in your life so wonderfully easy. On the other hand its so easy to love conditionally but then it makes everything in our lives so difficult.
We are humans and its not easy to love unconditionally, leave alone finding a person who will love us unconditionally. But, miracles do take place and unconditional love does take place. If you are at the receiving side of it, consider yourself blessed and watch your world become bright, brilliant and colourful, just as the transformation that takes place in the beast’s castle. Watch the movie and you will know what I mean. The ending ? Huge celebrations while the Beauty and the now handsome prince dance the night away. I would love to be in such a fairy tale. Only I know that I am neither a beast nor a handsome prince. But I would still dance the night away with my beauty. Only with a difference. Beauty is dressed in yellow in the film. I would prefer my Beauty in black. To hell with what the Disney studios think. I have chosen black. But yellow is my favorite.. Maybe both, so that I can make up my mind about black or yellow after checking out both. Or mixed black and yellow dress ? Maybe if I was in the tale none of this would have ever started for I probably would not have turned the old woman (witch) away from my castle and given her shelter. Maybe instead of the curse then, the old woman would have blessed me by turninig herself into a lovely Princess for me. Or maybe a royal Queen. Or even better, into a Goddess of love instead. Watch the movie – even if it is an animation. This is Disney studio’s magic at its best. The music of this will enter your soul. Now that I have written this, I am going to watch the movie again. Yes, alone. Disney studios called it “A tale as old as time”. Yes it is, just as unconditional love is divine and has been there from the beginning of creation. God’s love. Unconditional and non judgemental.
No comments:
Post a Comment