Orphee

A film by Jean Cocteau

Poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker, Jean Cocteau was one of the most significant artists of the 20th century and Orphee his finest work of cinema.

This magical retelling of the Orpheus myth turns the lyre-playing singer of Greek legend into a famous left-bank poet in postwar Paris. Fallen out of favour and lost for poetic inspiration, Orphee becomes obsessed with a mysterious black-clad princess who first claims the life of a rival poet, and then Eurydice, his wife.

With its unforgettable imagery – the dissolving mirror through which characters pass into the next world, the leather-clad, death-dealing motorcyclists, and Cocteau’s magical special effects – Orphee is a work of haunting beauty that follows the poetic logic of a dream.

“A hauntingly beautiful piece of cinema.” The Times