This film is very different than what you would expect Beauty and the Beast to be. It's much darker and more adult than what Disney could ever imagine. The film focuses more on the raw sexuality and taboo of the relationship between a pure, innocent white woman and this "beast". It's almost far more intense in its depiction of the brutal domestic conditions that the "beauty" lives in at her home with her oppressive sisters. This film is an interesting progression from poetic realism. Jean Cocteau is absolutely part of that trend having been an artist in Paris for so long. And many of the fantasy aspects of this film in terms of objects just appearing or disappearing and the hands grabbing out from the walls of the palace are poetic in nature and fantastic. This film is obviously fantastic but it is based in a level of reality. The metaphor of the beast in all man and the beauty to save him is a realistic message of rough and tumble masculinity needing a feminine hand to guide his way towards being more civilized.
The times again show the submissiveness of women in helping men, sexually too. That is absolutely part of the subtext to this film.
This movie employs crazy effects to get objects to disappear and then reappear. The close ups are extremely close and very heightened in nature, and we definitely see the evolution of film technique in this movie. The medium will once again experiment with the established shooting techniques and common practices created in the 1930s to create new effects for storytelling. In this film the use of slow motion, reverse shots, and subtle cuts created marvelous presentations of fantastic happenings on film.