ETERNAL RETURN Movie Review

L'Eternel Retour
Love Eternal

Director Jean Delannoy's updating of the Tristan and Isolde legend was a big hit in France, where it was filmed during the German Occupation. Jean Marais and Madeleine Sologne are Patrice and Nathalie, modern lovers who are repeating the age old tragic love story. Jean Cocteau's screenplay would most likely have been better served by Jean Cocteau the director; many of the “poetic” touches of director Delannoy are laid on with a trowel. Despite the presence of Marais and a score by Cocteau's composer Georges Auric, the film never radiates the grace or simple startling inventiveness of the films of Cocteau. On the other hand, it's not exactly the collaborationist debacle some have claimed, the blond protagonists notwithstanding.

NEXT STOP … Beauty and the Beast, Les Enfants Terribles, Orpheus

1943 111m/B FR Jane Marken, Alexandre Rignault, Roland Toutain, Yvonne de Bray, Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologne, Jean Murat; D: Jean Delannoy; W: Jean Cocteau; C: Roger Hubert; M: Georges Auric. VHS WBF, NLC, FCT