Orfeo (1950) - Jean Cocteau

Continues the versatile Jean Cocteau his film triad, his cinematic triptych, known Trilogy of Orpheus with the now commented picture, it constitutes the second of the three works, following the path of the surreal and initiator The Blood of a Poet (1933). Now, Cocteau basically continues the path set by the aforementioned feature, ie the search made by the artist, the creator, a search that is not always clear, which seems to pursue knowledge, perhaps self-knowledge, what drives him or her, though in the film in question, now that search lead the creative artist to the very death. The writer and French filmmaker chooses to frame his story the very well known Greek myth, the myth of the hellenic hero of the title, but he, taking advantage of its extremely sublime music, descends to the Hades to retrieve his beloved wife, mission ultimately not fulfilled. As in any film adaptation of a work from another artistic discipline, history is respected to some extent, but then the director prints and reflects his own feelings, modifying the original story based on what he wants to convey. The film moves away from the delusional and full surrealism of the film that started the triptych, but it is a film that explores, through a new path, many of the ideas put forward in that film, without completely abandoning the dream-like world with which Cocteau gladly used to permeate his film works.

             

In a cafe, we see the poet Orpheus (Jean Marais) with some comrades, a place to where arrives another poet, the young Cégeste (Edouard Dermithe), accompanied by a female known as Princess (Maria Casares). A brawl starts in the bar, altercation in which Cégeste dies. The Princess then, when taking the body to the police, asks Orfeo to testify what happened. On the way, meets her driver, Heurtebise (Francois Perier); she houses the poet at her home, exasperating his wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa) for his prolonged absence. Princess is actually the Death, that brings Cégeste back to life, while Orpheus returns to Eurydice. But Orpheus, obsessed with some radio broadcasts, ignores Heurtebise when he warns that Eurydice is in danger. It happens that, like Cégeste, Eurydice dies and is now a servant of the Princess. Orfeo is obsessed with Princess, and with the help of Cégeste, goes to look for her, crossing a mirror to reach her dark world. In these strange domains, even Death, Princess, is judged by his actions and falling in love with Orpheus, while Heurtebise loves Eurydice as well. Given this, Death is punished, Eurydice can return with Orpheus but he can never see her again, or will lose her forever. Orfeo lives untenable situation with Eurydice back to the real world, and finally chooses to fight for the Princess, a struggle beyond the reach of Death itself.

With a correct start of his film, the great Cocteau detaches a particular context, a date or specific location, and detaches us equally, hints subtlety that virtually certain circumstances don't matter, compared with what is shown; no matter if it was in the great days of Greek gods and heroes, or at a place and date in undetermined France point, what matters is what we observe. The key character, Death, is introduced in a very clear and convincing way, always Cégeste behind her, which will remain for the entire film, a significant detail, as if she was his protector, caregiver ... or mistress, as always shown dominator of everything and everyone, making the young poet slavishly follow her. She is Death, it is lethal, major superhuman presence, appears and disappears at will, it is cold, and skillfully Cocteau presents her to us in very expressive visual frameworks, in shadows, between contrasts of light, dressed often also gloomily, while Cégeste, which server, follows her everywhere, through mirrors thanks to her. She transcends the worlds with the ease with which an ordinary door is crossed, and the symbol of the mirror is ideal, the inverted reflection of the other side, a figure many times and by many filmmakers used. But the fascination of the film is in the humanization of supernatural beings, starting of course by Death, one of the greatest existential entities has fallen in the reach of love, she loves a man, and that is something not unique to her, for her faithful steward, Heurtebise, his emissary, his link with Orpheus and Eurydice (he is always with the spouses), has also succumbed to the human female; although of course, being a human him, the in-love Death is the strongest statement in this regard. It is thus that we have a group of four human beings who wander from one world to another, like surfing between the two realities, where superhuman beings are moved and overwhelmed by the feelings of mortals, attending amazing trial where the judges have forces that go far beyond imagination, even death itself must submit to their opinions. It is in this humanization which lies one of the variations that makes Cocteau from the myth, and that is that no is longer music, songs, what makes Orfeo neglect Eurydice, but it is in-love Death, Death, who, entranced by the poet, is distracting him to snatch his beloved.

But that is not the end of the issue. The fact that Death incarnates in a human being itself is already an indicator, and then we see it as the fatal and beautiful Princess, which is her other pseudonym. Cocteau, even more accurate than a human being, presents her as a woman, she is Death, and feels here a clear link with the initiator feature of the trilogy. Inevitable will be to remember the dream-image in The Blood of a Poet of the hermaphrodite that the Poet discovers when looking through the crack in a door, and the binary individual, after appearing as a man, is then presented as a woman, revealing the inscription, the height of the female sex, that says "Danger of Death". Woman and Death, again now are linked in the universe of Cocteau, detail to consider, because for virtually everyone is known the homosexuality of French filmmaker, and even without going any further, Jean Marais, the actor who plays Orfeo -with adequacy and solvency, by the way-, was his lover in real life. That seems a permissible judgment and reasonable to some extent, but not to reach the point of certain statements and articles which speaks of a pristine and very powerful presence of his homosexuality, hinting at a unconsummated romance between Orpheus and Cégeste. I believe that Cocteau has actually reflected some of that part of his personality, but not obvious nor crudely, but rather in a smart way and connected to his work, something remarkable. Coming from such a versatile personality like Cocteau's, it was also expected to find more than one artistic discipline, with the presence of poetry in more than one way, and always vitally. Declaimed verses constantly on the radio are perhaps the greatest expression of it, with its pace almost hypnotic when Orpheus meets Death, as predicting in that road trip the world and the events that are coming; and sure, constant radio broadcasts that make Orpheus obsess with it, and lose his beloved. The radio speaks of mirrors, the symbol par excellence in the film, the passage from one world to another, the mirror is broken at some point as it flows that dry poetry; the symbolism in the images of Cocteau, sometimes more obvious than others, is always present. Even in some of his dialogues certain lyricism lies, dark, but finally lyricism, as Heurtebise saying that to meet death, one must look in the mirror lifetime, and will see it working. Powerful and perfect figure that reinforces even more the symbol of the mirror as input and output connection from one universe to another.

In the second of his artistic brick building, with Orpheus, Cocteau continues as outlined in the previous Blood of a poet, the poet in search of something, sometimes knowledge, sometimes self-knowledge; the search will continue in this film, even though inadvertently creator will be chasing Death itself, both set a sleazy romance in a situation that borders on spooky. Orpheus begins his particular urban journey, his particular descent into Hades, and the beginning of this descent is illustrated in the aforementioned road trip that performs along with Death, where powerful chiaroscuro are delineating us the situation, while a voice almost hypnotic and almost poetic sounds on the radio, declaiming verses loaded with an ominous and baleful tone, finishing to illustrate the surreal and gloomy time. Upon shooting itself, Cocteau is a filmmaker who has prided himself on cinematographic techniques used for his films, and while not supernal these techniques, and neither he can be considered a pioneer or originator of any of those gadgets, achieves good results with few resources. That is, with simple camera-reversals, image overlay and fading them, and with some tricks of manipulation and handling of spaces and water, is able to generate that atmosphere, that situation of oneiric surreal-world, of translations between dream world and the real world. With these resources, as stated, simple, French filmmaker achieves a subtle and noticeable transition, subtle travel from unreal dream world to the real world, he simply and quietly amalgams both  worlds, and therein lies one of the successes in his film. Almost twenty years after the feature that starts triptych of Cocteau, and after three remarkable films, the French materializes the second part of his work, many of his previous guidelines remain embodied, is noted and noticed cohesion between the two works, echoes, subtle, or maybe not, links and halos of the first film to the second, which explores far beyond these obsessions, love, death (Maria Casares is extraordinary in the key role of the film, however it is known that immortal females such as Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich were among the possible interpreters; either had made an immortal work surely), the woman, is definitely a much more mature Cocteau. Notable picture by Cocteau, and though I would not rise versatile Jean up to master of cinema, this is a seductive sample of significant art he made.