The film adaptation of the novel, “Beloved,” struck me with a surprise like no other film adaptation for any novel I’ve seen. The 1998 film of “Beloved” was on point on every single scene and it captured every main point of the novel. The novel had explicit dialogues of every main character for readers to know the characters themselves and also their feelings inside. However, the film covered every main character and their personality by the actions that they’ve done in certain scenes. This film adaptation of Beloved is flawless to the point that there’s yet to have no difference from the novel. The film was carefully created exactly like the content of the novel and it successfully avoided the confusion of the flashback and present unlike the novel.
What was more appealing to the eyes were the structure of the film and how the director thoroughly and creatively constructed the background of major scenes. For example, the appearance of Beloved near the stream was fantastic, such that she wore all black, her creepy voice, and all the insects that crawled around her. This film adaptation had exactly every scene in the novel that can be summarized by the film with vivid imagery and as well as background effects. The scene when Paul D enters 124 and a red light flashes upon his face was hilarious, in a way that made him frightened by the house that was haunted by Sethe’s baby daughter. This scene foreshadowed how Sethe had killed her daughter when Paul D was just about to see Sethe in the shed holding her dead baby.
However, there was a lack of information about the character’s past for both Paul D and Sethe. In the film, Paul D did not mention about his past when he was imprisoned in Alfred, Georgia that led him lock his tobacco tin box. No one knew what Paul D had gone through those past eighteen years being separated from Sethe or anyone from Sweet Home. There should’ve been a scene in which Paul D would remember or have a flashback of his life in those years when he had trouble sleeping, the scene before Beloved seduced Paul D in the cold house. Another awkward thing in the film was how Sethe did not have a reaction to Beloved’s pregnancy, but only Denver knew because of the noise Paul D was making in the cold house with Beloved. What made all the characters become abnormal was how Beloved had the power to possess Paul D, Sethe, and partially Denver. Denver was the only one who had the power to be immune to Beloved because what Denver desired was to have someone beside so that she can have fun with or take care of. Furthermore, Denver was conscious about the things that were happening around her, that’s why she was the one who seek help from other people at the end of the novel and film.
All and all, the film and the novel were great and I was really amazed of how the film had every important scene in the novel and was well-displayed. As an overall, the actors and actresses were pretty awesome, especially Beloved and how she displayed a newborn baby in a woman’s body. The ending of the novel when Beloved vanished into the air when Sethe left her was a perfect scene, a better one than the novel. The reason is because the novel left readers blank without telling readers who or what was Beloved. The film made a clear point that Beloved was the baby ghost in a woman’s body and was vanished forever because Sethe could finally leave her forever and that Sethe had faced her fear of the schoolteacher made her attack the schoolteacher, not being afraid of the schoolteacher like before when she killed her baby daughter. I really liked the novel and the film as a whole because it gave great points of slavery and what drives a mother into killing her own child in order to defend them from slavery.
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