There is a something of a pretentiousness about Jean Cocteau's film Orpheus, but it's also so beautiful, so magical and so rewarding that you can forgive it. Cocteau spent three films dissecting the myth of Orpheus, but this marks his best attempt. Set in 1950s Paris (though it is undoubtably a highly fantastical version of the great city), the story focuses on a poet named Orpheus, whose life takes a dramatic turn when his best friend is killed in a traffic accident. The unique narrative conceit then allows characters to step back and forth between realms. And it is this neat narrative trick that gives the movie its undeniable "fantasy" edge, of course, rendering the film as something of a strange, visual poem (makes sense given that the Orpheus of the movie is, indeed, a poet). Cocteau's film has many detractors, however, a lot of whom have written off Orpheus as tiresome and tedious; but in making a true attempt to engage with this movie, it's doubtful that anybody could write it off as anything but magic, one that can be viewed again and again (and appreciated to greater effect each and every time you do).
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
