Beauty and the Beast

12/6/2025

I think of all the iterations of the Barbot story, this is probably my favourite. Not least because it is largely devoid of sentiment and has a gloomy sinisterness to it that I found creepy and yet quite emotionally charged. It all starts with the merchant “Otec” (Václav Voska) whose daughters could just as easily have come from “Cinderella”. Two are selfish and venal, the third is “Julie” (Zdena Studenková) who merely wants a rose from her father’s latest travels to fetch the dowry for his other two children. When disaster befalls that journey, he finds himself at the mercy of a mysterious but generous host who offers him food, shelter and treasure in exchange for the one thing he had left of value - a portrait of his late wife. About to leave, he espies a gift for his youngest and that’s