Our next foray into the beyond sees us descend into the Underworld with poet, playwright, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau as our guide as he transposes the Greek myth of Orpheus to 1950s Paris. 

Orphée (Jean Marais), a celebrated poet, is transported by a mysterious Princess (María Casares) to the Underworld. Chauffeured back to the realm of the living, he becomes obsessed with the cryptic messages that play on the Princess’s car radio, ignoring his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa), and failing to notice that his otherworldly driver has fallen in love with her, even as he himself has fallen in love with the Princess, an avatar of Death. 

Thematically complex and visually inventive, Orphée saw Cocteau at the height of his powers as a filmmaker, and it remains a beautiful, touching, and often surreal fable. The passage from one world to the other through a mirror is beautifully done and has been borrowed by filmmakers such as John Carpenter in Prince of Darkness (1987).  

The idea of being able to visit or rescue a loved one from the Otherworld is an appealing one, especially to the recently bereaved, and has often been explored in fiction. This is particularly frequent within the realms of horror, usually focusing on the terrible consequences that can come from reclaiming a loved one (as in, for example, Stephen King’s 1983 novel Pet Sematary). Perhaps Cocteau’s most radical revision of the original text is the startling idea of his proxy, a fellow artist, feeling an attraction to death. Where common consensus sees our ending as something to approach with dread, Cocteau explores the Freudian death instinct, the Thanatos, and the allure of crossing the final threshold. 

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of our season This Mortal Coil.