ORPHEUS (1950)

A.K.A.: Orphée

Country: France

Genre(s): Drama / Fantasy

Director: Jean Cocteau

Cast: Jean Marais / Maria Casares / Marie Déa

Plot

*spoiler alert*

In this update of the Ancient Greek legend, the well-known poet Orpheus meets Death personified in the form of a beautiful, mysterious Princess.  Obsessed with her and the messages he believes she is communicating to him through his car radio, he is oblivious when his wife Eurydice is killed.  Distraught, he ventures into the Underworld, unsure which woman, Eurydice or the Princess, he hopes to find.

What I Liked

Despite its age, the first thing anyone will notice about this movie is its visual effects.  Yes, they are mostly dated techniques that are easy to figure out for a viewer today; some of them were even dated back in 1950.  However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t entertaining or even convincing.  Director Jean Cocteau really made use of a whole menagerie of tricks to create some striking illusions and effects, giving his film the surreal quality the story calls for.  People walk through mirrors.  They fall sideways along walls.  They pass through passageways without walking.  They rise from the dead.  Many of these striking visuals happen at unexpected times, a strategy that keeps the eye intrigued from beginning to end.

A couple of entries ago, I wrote about “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a magnificent 2006 film to which “Orpheus” now feels like a revered ancestor both in style and in theme.  I wrote that “Pan’s Labyrinth” was a “tribute to the childhood imagination” and a “treatise on the power of belief.”  The same could be said of “Orpheus.”  Indeed, Cocteau himself nearly declares this to be true with the narrated introduction to the film, which translates to, “A legend is entitled to be beyond time and place.”  Like another of Cocteau's adaptations from legend, "Beauty and the Beast," this is a mesmerizing piece of fantasy, full of symbols and magic.

What I Didn’t Like

Thank god for the visual effects too, because without them “Orpheus” would be a dreadful bore.  The film moves at a deliberate pace.  Many scenes feel repetitious.  None of the characters are particularly likeable or even interesting, except perhaps the unknowable Princess Death.  The story is about as old as old stories can get and the filmmaker’s add little new to it, except to modernize the settings and a few details for the twentieth century.

Most Memorable Scene

There is a lot of blatant use of visual effects, but one of the more subtle scenes occurs once Orpheus and his guide Heurtebise arrive at their destination in the Underworld, the trial of Princess Death.  There are some nifty tricks of the camera here to make the otherworldliness of the setting convincing.  This is also one of the more interesting moments of the plot, where a love triangle turns in a love square and each character receives his or her sentence.  Their crime: bending the laws of life and death for love.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5