L'ETERNEL RETOUR

Film Review

L'Eternel Retour is a modern-dress version of the Tristan and Isolde story. The picture accomplished three things.

It put Jean Cocteau in the front rank among writers for the screen, and it opened the way to medieval settings and themes in the cinema.

Finally, it also gave Jean Marais a chance to wear a Jacquard sweater, which created a tidal wave in men's clothing styles. Young Frenchwomen, war-famished for romance and fashion, swooned at Marais' image, besieging the actor's apartment building round the clock.

Overnight Jeannot became the matinee idol he had longed to be.

In Jean Delannoy's haunting love-fable The Eternal Return (filmed in France during the German Occupation), screenwriter Jean Cocteau adapts the Tristan and Isolde myth to the modern age, combining the dreamy, tragic quality of a legend of unrequited love with contemporary aspects of family, honor, and relationships.

Handsome, carefree Patrice (Jean Marais) is an orphan who lives with his wealthy single uncle Marc (Jean Murat), his meddling aunt Gertrude (Yvonne de Bray) and her husband (Jean d'Yd) in a grand castle estate. Gertrude, an overbearing mother, is forever lamenting over her own son, a dwarf named Achille (Pierre Pieral in an amazing performance) who is prone to reckless, angry, and often evil acts.

Thinking Gertrude will cease worrying about her family if her brother Marc finds a bride, Patrice sets out to find one for him, only to fall in love with the beautiful, elusive, and psychologically scarred Natalie (Madeleine Sologne). When Achille tries to poison the pair, he inadvertently slips a love potion into their drinks, unleashing their mutual desire.

Patrice is banned from the castle by his jealous uncle, and tries to forget his love with another Natalie (Junie Astor), a sensible woman who is desperately in love with him.

What follows then is a series of illusions, suspicions, and deceptions, dramatically played out to the end in this visually stunning, captivating film.