Jean Cocteau
1950
95 minutes
Oh boy, this is Jean Cocteau's Orpheus! You're going to watch a good chunk of this on your phone walking back from a downtown art opening just in time to catch a happy hour beer at your regular pub. Look at you, all artsy!
This has Cocteau's usual supergayhunk boyfriend Jean Marais in it, who looks pretty good after being de-fanged and having all the fur shaved off his face. Jean Marais is, as usual, distractingly handsome to the point of ridiculousness. Acknowledging this should not make you uncomfortable. He is a vision in black and white. He looks like someone your mother would show you in her yearbook and just casually mention, "Oh yeah, this is the guy I dated before your father. He was supposed to take me to prom but I dumped him a week beforehand and went with your dad instead..." and then you would question her sanity even more than you currently do and say a little prayer knowing that your entire existence hinged on the fact that your temporarily deranged teenage mother decided to cast away one of the most gorgeous men who ever lived so that she could pursue some gangly goofball with a cheesy uncomfortable grin who looks like he's terrified of getting drafted and sent off to fight in some war in southeast Asia. And then you would wonder if you have some time machine adventure looming in your future to stay on the present Berenstain Bears hellscape timeline to secure your own existence.
This is a Jean Cocteau film, so get ready for lots of magic. People are gonna be walking through mirrors and putting on gloves backwards and shit like that. You won't wonder at how the special effects are done because it will be incredibly obvious, but you will still marvel at how fucking good--and more importantly atmospheric--they are. The story...well, just don't think so hard about it. If you want a fucking story, read a fucking book. This is a movie. Jean Cocteau wrote books too, you know. Read one of those. He got that shit out of his system by writing and he dipped into film to do things like...this. You probably don't even make films. (And if you do, then god help me for even letting you read this...) In any case, keep any writing snobbery to yourself. Good luck getting one actual flesh-and-blood person to stand in the right place and say shit you want them to say, whether you're filming them or not. Just sit back and enjoy the ride on this. Repeat to yourself, it's just a show. You should really just relax.
Time to choose something different: