Don't have much time to get a lot of thoughts down on it, but wanted to post a few quick toplines (agghh corporate-speak invades my life!).
-I fell asleep three times through this movie. I attribute it more to the lyrical pace of the fairy tale than to it being boring (since my wife didn't get bored, I assume that the fault was with me).
-I was intrigued by the magical effects--the faces in the mantle, the moving candelabra's. I assume this inspired the talking tea pots in Disney's piece. A beautiful film.
--I found the ending a little huh? Belle's love interest, Avenant, certainly didn't come across as a Gaston like clod, so there didn't appear to me to be much tension between him and Belle. But it's his death that partially releases the Beast from the spell, and its his face that the Prince wears after the spell is broken. That seemed a little creepy--made the Beast seem more like a projection of Belle's hopes and needs than as his own person.
How much influence did the war have on the film, I wonder. I looked for threads in which the war made an impact on the tone or the story. Perhaps in the self-serving nature of Belle's sisters and brothers reflected a bit of disappointment with local collaboraters with the Vichy government. Who knows--maybe it was all an escapist fantasy.