Recently buying Les Enfants Terribles,I started reading up online about the project from auteur icons Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau. Making plans for films to view for an ICM poll on the best movies of 1948,I was surprised to learn from a DVD seller that the name of Melville's work was a reference to a '48 Cocteau,which led to me meeting the terrible parents.
View on the film:
Starkly standing out from his first three films, writer/director Jean Cocteau and cinematographer Michel Kelber trim the distinctive Surreal/ Fantasy stylisation for cramped, stage-bound locations. Following each person along as if they were cross to a different part of the stage, Cocteau allows his casts to fully explore their relationships in extended takes,with the addition of icy close-ups closing in on the vile from the parents.
Doing a second adaptation of his own plays in 1948, Cocteau superbly uses the isolated apartment to pull open the hateful views of Georges and Yvonne,who spit pure nihilism at the wide-eyed innocence of their son Michel. Reuniting from their magical Beauty and the Beast, Jean Marais and Josette Day proved they have not lost a drop of chemistry as Michel and Madeleine,via Marais threading Michel's passionate love for Madeleine between the fury of his family (played by the outstanding Yvonne de Bray/ Marcel André and Gabrielle Dorziat) and Day having Madeleine jump with giddy unease over meeting Les parents terribles.
View on the film:
Starkly standing out from his first three films, writer/director Jean Cocteau and cinematographer Michel Kelber trim the distinctive Surreal/ Fantasy stylisation for cramped, stage-bound locations. Following each person along as if they were cross to a different part of the stage, Cocteau allows his casts to fully explore their relationships in extended takes,with the addition of icy close-ups closing in on the vile from the parents.
Doing a second adaptation of his own plays in 1948, Cocteau superbly uses the isolated apartment to pull open the hateful views of Georges and Yvonne,who spit pure nihilism at the wide-eyed innocence of their son Michel. Reuniting from their magical Beauty and the Beast, Jean Marais and Josette Day proved they have not lost a drop of chemistry as Michel and Madeleine,via Marais threading Michel's passionate love for Madeleine between the fury of his family (played by the outstanding Yvonne de Bray/ Marcel André and Gabrielle Dorziat) and Day having Madeleine jump with giddy unease over meeting Les parents terribles.