Popular reviews

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  Review by nora ★★★ 1

  a poet LITERALLY falling in love with death? the frenchest thing that has ever happened

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  Review by RupertKnoll ★★★★

  It would make sense that everybody speaks french in hell

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★ 1

  80/100

  Cocteau understands dreams, and he also understands how certain effects can be transporting even if they're transparent. The journey to the underworld, for example, plainly has Heurtebise standing motionless before a rear-projected, moving Orpheus, but knowing that doesn't make it seem any less uncanny. (Equally great: Orpheus asking Heurtebise why the latter's hair is blowing around when there's no wind, and being told it's a stupid question.) The oneiric quality beautifully serves Cocteau's inspired reinterpretation of the myth, in which one of the most powerful love stories of all time instead becomes a portrait of the artist's obsession with death, viewed through the rubble of WWII. As with Beauty and the Beast, my only quibble, though a significant one,…

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  Review by Chris 🍉 ★★★★★ 1

  wow..... jean cocteau and jean marais truly were an iconic bisexual french power couple

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★★ 8

  My first exposure to the myth of Orpheus was Terry Cavanagh's Don't Look Back, an unassuming little flash game I encountered in 2009 back when I'd sneak on Cool Math Games and Kongregate during middle school. It masked as a surprisingly-difficult and ultra-simplistic platformer wherein the player character, departing from a grave, descends deeper and deeper into a cavern while fighting off harder and harder enemies until eventually conquering Cerberus and Hades to reach, at the dark heart of it all, a spirit. Now the player must ascend out of the hell they have worked so hard to get into but(!) from then on the game changes radically and looking back results in game over as the spirit dissipates. Whereas…

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  Review by noen ★★★★★

  “Where does our story take place... and when? A legend is entitled to be beyond time and place.”

  Jean Cocteau, I love you so much, only a genius like him could create a masterpiece that fuses mythological greatness with modernist introspection in such a magnificent way, presenting a frightening reflection on art, mortality, love and the eternal conflict between the human and the transcendent.

  The film is based on the classical Greek myth of the same name; Orpheus, the musician whose incomparable art could charm even the gods and fill the divide between the living and the dead. Cocteau, however, escapes a little from the traditional and reimagines Orpheus as a poet, a figure that reflects Cocteau himself and is…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★

  The Orphic myth recast as one in which the poet's ability to charm death is reciprocal, wherein the artist is closest to death but also capable of transcending it. And really, some of Cocteau's shots will never not be bewildering to me, works of practical effects and clever angling that blow my mind more than the crowded, programmed shot of GRAVITY. I have really got to explore him more in-depth.

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  Review by Laura ★★★★ 2

  this is really what it feels like to dream and to let go of any idea of control. somehow found myself fully engaged, while my own thoughts and vignettes played simultaneously, which made for a surreal experience. i thought i was getting lost in my own world but then got pulled right back in, sort of like looking in a mirror. existing twice, as a form and as a reflection.

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  Review by meyi☆ ★★★★

  certainly a head scratcher

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  Review by Zach ★★★★ 1

  Dead Poets Society (1950)

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  Review by darbs ᥫ᭡ ★★★★½ 8

  "Sleeping or dreaming, the sleeper must accept his dreams."
  I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality. 

  Jean Cocteau's Orpheus is dreamy in a way that captivates you altogether, even though it can be calming at moments and difficult to follow at others.

  This film feels it’s set in a different reality. It almost makes you believe that all of this did really happen. Instead of fairy tales, Cocteau takes us on a journey through death and the afterlife. It’s great visually, and the usage of mirrors is stunning.

  “Life is sculpting me. Let it finish its work.“
  One of the best movies i’ve seen recently, if you haven’t read/watched anything about greek mythology, then i recommend seeing this!🏛️

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  Review by ilsu ★★★★ 8

  -What do you mean by "poet"?

  +To write, without being a writer.

  The story of a poet who descends into the underworld after his dead wife. We are all familiar with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and this story has been featured in many films. But this is a little different from the story we know. What makes the story different from a classic Orpheus adaptation is not just that it has been brought to the contemporary world; Cocteau has enriched the story, which is essentially based on Orpheus' love for his wife, by adding other new and equally strong loves.

  So much so that three more characters, like Orpheus and his wife, gain the identity of the main…