Orphée (2004)
Also known as "Orpheus"
Starring: Jean Marais, François Périer, Maria Casarès, Marie Déa, Henri Crémieux, Juliette Gréco, Roger Blin, Edouard Dermithe, Maurice Carnège, René Worms, Raymond Faure, Pierre Bertin, Jacques Varennes
Director: Jean Cocteau
Running Time: 91 minutes
US MPAA rating: UnratedUK BBFC rating: PG
Drama, Fantasy, Romance
On DVD Jean Cocteau was a true renaissance man, finding time between opium binges to be a poet, playwright, novelist, illustrator, filmmaker, and even a boxing manager of some merit. After the success of his film 'La Belle et la Bête' in 1946, Cocteau decided to try his hand at another adaptation of myth, this time transposed to a modern setting and filled with contemporary echoes and autobiographical resonances. The result is 'Orphée', a mannered revery on art, love, death and sacrifice which is generally regarded as Cocteau's masterpiece.
After the popular young poet Cégeste (Edouard Dermithe) is injured in a motorcycle hit-and-run incident outside the bohemian Café des Poètes, the 'princess' (Maria Casarès), a sponsor of poetic publications, takes him away in her Rolls Royce, bringing the older, establishment poet Orphée (Jean Marais) along as a witness to the accident - only Cégeste is in fact dead, the lethal motorcyclists turn out to be employees of the princess, while the princess proves to be Death itself, come from the other side to bring Cégeste into her service. Confused by his dreamlike encounter, Orphée is brought back home by the princess' driver Heurtebis (François Périer) - but Orphée is now obsessed with the mysterious woman, and neglects his own wife Eurydice (Marie Déa). When Eurydice is also killed by the motorcyclists, Heurtebis (who himself loves Eurydice) helps Orphée to claim her back to life through an Underworld tribunal - but the conditions of Eurydice's return prove difficult to meet, and Orphée would prefer the princess to become his one true muse.
'Orphée' is adapted both from the Greek myth of Orpheus and from Cocteau's 1925 play of the same name, but deviates significantly from both. In the film, rather than cheat death by rescuing his wife, Orphée cheats on his wife with a personified Death - and instead of being torn limb from limb in the finale, here Orphée's ending is relatively happy (if being locked in a loveless marriage and trapped in a hell of bourgeois life can be called 'happy'), with the true suffering reserved for others. Perhaps most innovative are the film's many evocations, however chimerical, of the recent French Occupation and the bitter recriminations which immediately followed the War. Set in a sort of alternative Paris abuzz with factions, rumours, disappearances and accusations, 'Orphée' features a limbo-like 'Zone' shot amidst the wartorn ruins of the Saint-Cyr military academy, infernal radio messages reminiscent of coded broadcasts to the Resistance, and of course lots of illicit trafficking and collaboration with the other side - so that Cocteau has fashioned a new myth for his own times, with himself as its playful bard.
While it is tempting to regard the aging poet Orphée as a stand-in for Cocteau himself, Orphée seems more like a reflection of everything Cocteau feared he might become - self-important, stagnating, narcissistic, unfaithful, bourgeois, oblivious to the misery he causes others, out of touch with the young but ready enough to steal their ideas. As though it were not difficult enough to engage with this character, Cocteau instructed Jean Marais (already a natural ham) to invest his performance with melodramatic flourishes. The results are not one of this film's strong points (although it is intriguing that Orphée is played by a former lover of Cocteau, while the more vital, albeit dead, Cégeste is played by his current lover). Better that 'Orphée' should be remembered for its other, more noble characters (especially Heurtebis and the princess), for its dreamlike images, and its visual trickery (often, like Cocteau's much earlier 'Le Sang d'un Poète', involving mirrors) employed to convey the passage from this world to the next in a manner that is highly effective for all its simplicity.
DVD Extras: Scene selection; audio commentary by Dr Roland François Lack (Lecturer in the department of French at University College London) who gives full accounts of all the mirror trickery, and reveals amongst other things that Jean-Pierre Melville, who would shortly direct Cocteau's 'Les Enfants Terribles', has a cameo as a hotel clerk, and that the film's radio messages were delivered in Cocteau's original play by a talking horse; 'Jean Cocteau: Lies and Truth' (63min, English subtitles), a comprehensive documentary on Cocteau's life and art including archival footage of Cocteau, excerpts from his films and plays, and interviews with Cocteau himself, as well as directors Jean-Luc Godard and Alejandro Jodorowsky, actor Jean Marais, musicologist Claude Samuel, artist Louis Aragon, dramaturgist Cyril Robichez, dancer Jean Babilée and cinematographer Henri Alekan; bios of Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais and Maria Casarès; a still of Cocteau's original film poster design.
It's Got: Death in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce accompanied by masked men on motorbikes, phantom radio broadcasts, simple yet powerful visual effects, exquisitely understated performances from François Périer and Maria Casarès (and an irritatingly overstated one from Jean Marais in the lead), and mirrors that do far more than merely reflect - it even has a sequel, Cocteau's cinematic swansong 'Le Testament d'Orphée', made a full decade later.
It Needs: A much stronger central performance.
Alternatives: 'Le Sang d'un Poète', 'Le Testament d'Orphée', 'A Matter of Life and Death'
Summary: Cocteau's classic revery on art, love, death and sacrifice may well take you to another world - if the leading man's histrionics are not too distracting.
Review Date: 14th October 2004
External Links
Orphée at the IMDB
