Orphée

This film is an updating of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film updates the action to post-war France, with Orpheus (played by Jean Marais) a famous but dis-satisfied poet.

The film focuses on the themes of love and death. Most notably Orpheus falling in love with a glamorous incarnation of Death (Maria Casares).

Writer-director Jean Cocteau turns the everyday world into a magical realm. Mirrors turn to pools which are portals to other worlds, car radios pick up coded messages from Death's World. In less talented hands than Cocteau's, the delicate fantasy could have easily become ridiculous but he handles it with brilliance and the film works perfectly.

Here Cocteau creates a truly poetic film. The story is magical and entertaining and the film is filled with wonderously surreal images (particularly striking is the frequent use of filming an action performed backwards, and then reversing it which creates a very strange impression).

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.

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.

If ever a film could me called `magical', `hypnotic' and `compelling', then surely that film is ORPHEUS; magical because it is such an incredible feat of the imagination; hypnotic because it is a relentless assault upon all the senses, the intellect and the emotions, and compelling because it is a profound attempt to at least illustrate, (it is not so arrogant as to presume to solve!), the mystery of life, our awareness of death and human consciousness endlessly seeking some sort of certainty to comfort ourselves with. Layered with various ambiguous possibilities, and full of symbols which will resonate in a variety of ways according to each individual viewer, each viewing of the film draws you deeper into its mystery again and again, and each time teaches you more and more. Perhaps it could only have been made when it was, (in the aftermath of WW2), and where it was, (in a country that had decided to do a deal with Death and then lived to regret it). Perhaps because Jean Cocteau was so talented in so many fields, people seldom seem to note what an utterly brilliant film director he was, and his work in this respect with ORPHEUS, stands comparison with anybody's. The film is also so complete, and unravels so perfectly and in such a masterly way; not one superfluous scene; superb acting all round, atmospheric photography, and a superbly utilised and sublime score by Georges Auric. I simply cannot imagine a film like this being made now, (perhaps LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD was the last gasp of this type of didactic artistic consciousness), and this depresses me greatly, because it shows that `progress' is not an automatic, upwardly rising arc, but a curve that can go backwards as well as forwards. Anyone who has even the slightest affection for cinema should watch this film, and marvel, surrender, and learn from it. Without doubt in my book, one of the ten greatest movies ever made. So much so that I almost feel privileged to have been born into the time frame that could access it.

It was fantastic that I got to see this film, yet odd that it had to be from the video selection of my English faculty library. So, headphones it was, on a typically cold English February day, in a place of learning.

I quickly took to this spirited, ambitious film; a heady concoction that blends fantasy and reality beautifully. This is truly one of the aesthetically wondrous films one could ever wish to see... it has a visual poetry that beguiles the eye, as well as the verbal poetry of a fine script. This is a Cocteau film in which he goes a bit deeper into his characters; while the acting is 'stagy' (in quite an appealing manner) the use of location firmly grounds the piece in an initial contemporary, provincial French town. Cocteau's camera takes in all that is necessary and no more, in conveying his lucid dream visions. That the realism so convinces, in its way of establishing a sleepy, unremarkable French town, really helps the fantasy to come across within a richly plausible context.

Many touches seem audacious and visionary - the very fact of translating this ancient myth to contemporary France, the brilliant device of having Orpheus enraptured by at times otherworldly, at times mundane messages conveyed through a crackling car radio... the imagery of a mirror turning watery as it is passed through; this is sublime, artful stuff, of a heavily metaphysical, cerebral yet enjoyable nature. Maria Casares is absolutely splendid as the "Princess", an aspect of Death; beautifully sleek and stern, with a suppressed tenderness brought out later in the film. Casares brilliantly conveys the sense of a timeless creature of the ages, despite her being only in her 27th year when it was made. Jean Marais is wonderfully theatrical in his acting; a good portrayal of the flawed artist - in this case 'poet', chasing after inspiration rather than worldly happiness. The overlaps with Cocteau himself, autobiographically, add a little extraneous interest... certain scenes seem to refer to Cocteau's position in France, and interestingly also the occupation, with the leather clad motor-cyclists and absurdist underground tribunals...

I should mention the character Heurtebise, treated deftly by Cocteau; who seems to find most to relate to in his male leads, Orpheus and Heurtebise. While the very feminine Death is portrayed exceptionally, Maria Dea's Eurydice is I feel, seen as quite insignificant, though Dea does her best. It's a shame Juliette Greco gets such short shrift in her role as Aglaonice; much is hinted at early on, regarding her antagonistic character, that is not followed up. Francois Perier is wonderful as Heurtebise; along with Casares the most memorable performance here. Perier really makes you believe in and sympathize with this character, as well as having a matter-of-fact eccentricity comparable to Marius Goring's Conductor in "A Matter of Life of Death".

Auric and Hayer do a superb job fine-tuning and moulding Cocteau's tantalizing vision of art, death and love. The film is technically brilliant, the trick shots superbly pulled off and the atmosphere always compelling, involving the viewer, despite the latent abstract quality of the film.

This really is a film to lose yourself in; a lyrical feat of visual poetry with the majestic sense of dream. It is film fantasy as it all too seldom has been; sublimely imaginative and fluidly inventive.

Rating:- **** 1/2/*****