L’éternel retour (1943)

L’éternel retour (“Love Eternal”)
Directed by Jean Delannoy
Written by Jean Cocteau
1943/France
Films André Paulvé
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Tristram: Soft – who is that, stands by the dying fire?

The Page: Iseult.

Tristram: Ah! not the Iseult I desire. — Matthew Arnold, Tristram and Iseult[/box]

Jean Cocteau was at his best in getting at the mythic beating heart of fairy tales and legends, here a modern version of the ancient story about the adulterous love between Tristan and Isolde.

Patrice (Cocteau’s partner and muse Jean Marais) is visiting his wealthy uncle Marc.  The chateau is also occupied by Gertrude, the sister of Marc’s deceased wife, her husband, and their son Achille.  The entire Frossin clan is the stuff of nightmares but Achille, a grown-up dwarf whom his mother treats as a young child, is particularly evil.  They are all obsessed with jealousy of Patrice.

Patrice takes them in his stride.  He decides what Marc needs is a wife.  He finds an ideal candidate on an island in the form of the young, very blonde Nathalie (Madeleine Solonge), who is being terrorized by her drunken boyfriend.  Nathalie agrees to leave with Patrice. Her protector Anne provides a bottle of love potion marked “Poison” for Nathalie to use if she cannot work up enthusiasm for the middle-aged Marc.

Marc likes Nathalie at once and a wedding quickly follows.  He encourages the teasing friendship between Nathalie and Patrice.  One night when they are back from one of their athletic endeavors, Patrice suggests that they get drunk.  Achille secretly dumps the contents of the bottle in their glasses.

The two are now overtaken by a passion that remains unconsummated.  The Frossins make sure Marc finds out about this and Patrice is exiled.  He steals Nathalie away but she is found out and meekly returns to the chateau.  Patrice takes up with a brunette, also named Nathalie.  But nothing can prevent the lovers’ tragic reunion.

The filmmakers managed to come up with the blondest and most square-jawed actors in all of France for this.  It is astounding how Teutonic they look.  The villains are all brunettes. Perhaps no deeper meaning should be read into all this.  At any rate, it is a visually beautiful telling of the story, with less flourishes than La belle et la bête but some of the same fairly tale feeling.  The characters were a bit too symbolic to be fully engaging.

Montage of clips – no subtitles but little dialogue