Orfeo

This is my favorite Cocteau film and the most accessible of the Orpheus trilogy, which includes Blood of the Poet (1930) and The Testament of Orpheus (1960). It tells the story of a poet's love for both his wife and "The Princess", a shadowy figure who conducts humans to the underworld upon their death. Orpheus is obsessed with the figure of Death and, ignoring his pregnant wife, follows her into the underworld. The Princess, in turn, falls in love with Orpheus, conducts Orpheus's wife into the underworld, and is eventually punished for "breaking the rules". The underworld is portrayed as a bureaucracy where drab clerks hold hearings in small drab rooms and bring down the wrath of the "rules" on anyone who does not play out their specified role.

Maria Casares is superb as the Princess but François Périer is my favorite character, Heurtebise, the Princesses assistant who also "breaks the rules" by falling in love with Orpheus' wife. Jean Marais is also excellent as the poet Orpheus. Cocteau comments on the role of the poet in society through the role of Orpheus. The young avant garde crowd has turned against Orpheus and now worships the vacant Cegeste. Orpheus asks his publisher what he must do to regain their admiration and is told to "astonish us". When the police inspector is about to arrest Orpheus and then, upon recognizing him, lets him off and asks for his autograph, you know we're not in Kansas (or anywhere in the US).

Several of the characters (The Princess, Heurtebise and Cegeste), played by the same actors, repeat their roles 10 years later in The Testament of Orpheus, passing judgement on Cocteau himself. Their scenes are the best part of that film.

This is a very beautiful film that I've grown to like more and more upon repeat viewings. 9 out of 10.

Although this is definitely Jean Cocteau up to his old cinematic tricks, Orphee is beyond criticism as it's Art that has stood the test of time. And updated Classical Art at that. Keep your guard up and you won't get it. But drop your guard and it's still an astonishing film, an allegorical atmospheric magical poetic potboiler, and a film I've seen over 10 times over the decades without failing to admire its self-possession and panache.

Orphee is a self-obsessed cult poet, who gets immersed in writing down and publishing the cryptic word gems the Princess of Death's talking car tells him. "The bird sings with its fingers" is especially ridiculously impressive, but of course, all of this was a reference to Resistance methods during the War of disguising their intentions from the Nazis. Allegorical to ... what? During this period his wife Eurydice is murdered by the Princess, who fancies Orphee while Heurtebise her Underworld chauffeur fancies Eurydice. Hem. This is not only a four dimensional, but a multi-dimensional tour de force, travelling back and forth through the worlds of life and death. The intellectual complexities involved can be enormous, you can lose the plot by thinking too deeply about one line of dialogue, or why "Orpheus's Death" is coming through the mirror at night to look at Eurydice. On the other hand, you might view it all as totally ridiculous and pretentious and laugh out loud at some of the scenes - but that only makes you a realist and not a poet. Auric's dreamy music helps a lot, although Passport to Pimlico keeps coming to mind!

Cocteau revisited Orphee later on near the end of his life, but The Testament of Orphee unfortunately really was pretentious even if startlingly different for 1960 - to quote: "his life had decayed, rotten with success". But this is the Real Secret of Secrets - Orphee is an utterly unique treasure, conceived and executed by an irreplaceable talent - and his second best effort too, after Belle et la Bete! Worth the weight of its nitrate stock in gold.

From its explosive opening where a brawl occurs at a café for poets that's "the nerve-centre of the world" to traveling through the afterlife to the very end, Orphée's mania never stops. It's an incredibly gripping and bizarre film which immediately evolves into a bad dream. It's grandest aspect is the visual treat that visionary director Jean Cocteau offers. The camera is fluid and active, whipping between characters and sets, exploring high and low angles. Though the highlight is the special effects, especially for its time even if clearly channeling Méliès, with seamless reversed shots, projections, wires and point of view shots involving mirrors. The narrative flows fluently to give a rich and inventive story, with elements of innovative humour, with double meanings and exaggerations, and tragedy redeemed. With its ambiguity between reality, dream or fantasy world, it could even be argued that there is no reality and it begins right in the fantasy, though the expert use of foreshadowing renders that aspect irrelevant in cinema.

Despite it having a very compacted story, there's not enough emotional or thought-provoking ideas there for me to understand why it's considered a masterpiece, especially due to its consistent tension, rather than an ideal fluctuating tone. The characters, besides the surprising supporting character Heurtebise with a subtle performance from François Périer, there is little chemistry between the actors, who for the majority of the time give melodramatic performances solely for the camera. As it's a story trying to be about love, this only comes across as a sidenote to the spectacle. There is, however, the fascinating idea of how an artist can be so enamoured with inspiration that they neglect their real life and purpose of why they're creating their art. It also does not show any of the deaths, the films other main theme, which dramatically decreases their potential power. There is an incidental scene where the Inspector is talking to people in his office in which it has a brief flashback while a man is talking of what he's talking about - a technique Hiroshima Mon Amour later innovated. With the dazzling and inventive direction, Orphée is a great film, but too often doesn't take itself seriously enough.

8/10

Jean Cocteau is a complete aesthetic package and I love him.

Cocteau seems to get an idea for a film based around some themes that spark ideas in him, and then includes a lot of images purely for aesthetic reasons. His films seem to belong to no real tradition. He's a tradition unto himself.

One of the things that really seems to be on his mind here is the middle aged slump into mediocrity. He was 60 years old when he made this film, so his Orpheus's fear that his artistic power has waned must have been a real concern. If you make a film this beautiful, you needn't worry.

I love that his film has poetry groupies who swarm poets for autographs. The suggestion that Orpheus may have plagiarized Cégeste's work causes poets to storm his house. What a world!

This film is all sleek black leather and beautiful lo-fi special effects.

Juliette Gréco and Jean-Pierre Melville show up.

I enjoy the enthusiasm from user reviewer Dave G ("One of the truly great masterpieces of cinema", Dave G from Sheffield, England, 25 January 2000). Also, from peterehoward ("The closest cinema has come to poetry", peterehoward, United Kingdom, 13 November 2005).

Good background information can be found from rdoyle29 ("A timeless fantasy classic", rdoyle29 from Winnipeg, Canada, 17 September 2000). In addition, Ed from NY, NY ("the most poetic of all films", Ed from New York, NY, 23 May 2002) does a good job in figuring out a perplexing plot turn near the end.

Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus" (1950) is a bizarre, dream-like journey to the Underworld and back. It is surprising not only because of the depth of its madness, but also because it came out of seemingly buoyant, post-war France. By today's standards the pacing is a little slow; and it is occasionally soporific. However, if you have the patience for it the feeling is this is a cinematic masterpiece that demands repeated viewing.

Cocteau's nightmarish retelling of the Greek legend featuring poet Orpheus, his frequently-ignored wife Eurydice and the Princess of Death borrows from personal memories of the director as well as Francophile war experiences. For example, the cryptic radio personality that Orpheus obsesses over is regarded to represent the BBC communicating coded words to the French Resistance. In addition, the mob that will assault Orpheus is derived from early intellectual critics of Cocteau's art.

The actors are first-rate. Cocteau's former lover, Jean Marais, is convincing as a celebrity who can compel others with his magnetism. However, two other cast members are exceptional. Maria Casares is mesmerizing as the Princess of Death. François Périer is also note-perfect as the chauffeur Heurtebise. Ms. Casares, who steals all of her scenes, speaks (the frequently insane) lines of her underworld character with total conviction; she is a principal source of the pervasive horror. Périer's Heurtebise is another character who appears at times to be speaking from another world.

Visually, Cocteau is interesting throughout. As a writer he creates a grotesque universe. This is a great way to escape mundane human existence--and perhaps, a look at what is coming in the afterlife.