Orpheus is a poet who hangs around at a café. He spots a woman and drunk man arriving there. When the police wants to apprehend him, the drunk man runs into the street and is hit by two motorcycle riders. Orpheus is summoned by the woman to accompany her and the dead man in the car, as a witness. The driver, Heurtebise, drives them to a castle, where Orpheus realizes the woman is Death, who takes the dead man and makes him walk away into the mirror. Orpheus' wife Eurydice dies while on a bycicle on the street, and Heurtebise and Orpheus go through the mirror into the underworld, where a tribunal allows Eurydice to return back to life under the condition that Orpheus must never see her directly. He accidentally sees her in the back mirror of the car, and she disappears. Orpheus is killed by a mob that attacks him, and he meets Death again, in whom he is in love, too. The tribunal sends Orpheus and Eurydice back to life, but with no memory.
Included in Roger Ebert's Great Movies list, this unusual modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a dreamlike, at times surreal and abstract fairytale that contemplates about life and death, reality and illusion, priorities and missed chances. Since the title protagonist admits he loves both Eurydice and the woman who is Death, the story even inserts a theme of polyamory. The director Jean Cocteau crafts the film in somewhat routine manner during "normal" sequences, yet he rises to the occasion in those fantasy sequences where several neat tricks are used, reminiscent of the days of Melies. One interesting scene has Death walk through the broken mirror, and then the broken pieces of glass are re-assembled in reverse, and the mirror is whole again, as Orpheus walks by to look at it. The underworld is surreal as well, depicted as ruines of a town, and as Orpheus and Heurtebise slowly crouch and walk along a wall they reach the corner, and both somehow "glide-fall" to the left side of the wall. The effect is also heightened when a person stands still is in the foreground, while the rear projection screens Orpheus walking behind him on the street. Sadly, there is never true chemistry between Orpheus and Eurydice, and thus the viewers never get the impression he really loves her. An interesting subplot has the story prolong the problem of Orpheus trying not to look at Eurydice, as to not make her disappear, and this sequence works well, including Orpheus trying to look down while she in the kitchen, or when he is affraid to even see her face on a photo. On one level, the movie works, but on the other, it never truly engages the viewers to the fullest. A problem might be that this is a short story, and thus prolonging it to a feature length movie makes it feel overstretched.
Grade:++
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