Starring Jean Marais, François Périer, María Casares and Marie Déa
Written and directed by Jean Cocteau
France 1950
95 mins
Jean Cocteau was an extraordinary and imaginative talent - at various times in his life a visual artist, a poet, a playwright, a novelist and a designer. He also made a handful of the most magical and extraordinary films ever to come out of France including 'La Belle et la Bête' (his entrancing version of Beauty and the Beast) and tonight's picture 'Orphée'.
Cocteau takes the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and relocates it to 20th century Paris. His regular collaborator - the actor Jean Marais - plays a famous poet who finds himself drawn into the underworld when his path crosses with a mysterious princess and her companion on a night out. Soon Orphée is embroiled in a struggle to save his wife Eurydice from the clutches of death and her minions...
Cocteau achieves dreamlike visual effects through the simplest means in 'Orphée' - mirrors become a portal to the other side and liquid mercury a permeable barrier while slow motion and negative images serve to transport us out of this world into the next. Made only a few years after the end of WW2 bombed-out locations like the St Cyr military academy provide the film with striking settings while the abstract, supernatural poetry heard on the radio echoes the coded messages sent via the BBC to the resistance movement.
Just this month a Philip Glass opera based on 'Orphée' is premiering at the ENO - proving that nearly 70 years after its release this mesmerising movie continues to impress and inspire.
