If I put my mind to it I could probably get a reasonable Term Paper out of poets during the Occupation but on the other hand I wouldn't want to put the Academic-Pseud axis out of work. What brought this on, you ask. Well you might. Fact is I've just watched Jean Delannoy's L'Eternal Retour for the first time and was struck by the resemblance to Marcel Carne's Les Visiteurs du soir which was released one year earlier in 1942. Both films were written by poets (although Jean Cocteau was a poet more in his mind than mine whilst Jacques Prevert was the real McCoy. Prevert ended Les Visiteurs du soir with a stunning poetic image; the Devil, slightly miffed that the envoys he sent to earth to screw up the mortals plans had actually fallen for the mortals in question, duly petrified two of the lovers but as we gaze on the two statues we hear their hearts continuing to beat. Cocteau, being a lesser poet, settles for a more pedestrian ending leaving the two lovers lying side by side a la Romeo and Julient and, just in case we don't get it, having the husband of the woman intone solemnly 'now no one can come between them'. Although he didn't direct his take of Tristan and Isolde Cocteau ensured that the lead went to his life-long lover Jean Marais, a graduate of the Forestry Commission School of Acting and perhaps for his own pleasure he has Marais 'pose' a couple of times for no apparent reason. By coincidence Carne was himself homosexual as were Cocteau and Marais, which has no bearing on either film yet you can see how that old Academic-Pseud axis would be standing in line to book sabbaticals and write this up. Delannoy was a pretty good filmmaker as it happens and the records show that this was one of the most popular films released during the Occupation. I have no quarrel with that and I'm pleased to have finally seen it.
Review of L'éternel retour
