Still Flowing

Looking for something short to watch last night, I found myself watching The Blood of a Poet (1930) for the first time in fifteen or so years. It's amazing to think that it's Jean Cocteau's first film. The assurance with which he combines composition and strange special effects effortlessly create a beautiful film that clearly conveys its ideas.

This movie is a prime example of how some things are best conveyed by film and describing them in words is to omit most of the meaning. You can get some idea of what is happening in a scene where two people in fancy dress play cards over a dead child or in a scene where a mouth appears on the hand of an artist. These are already fine ideas in text but visualising them in a way that gives a sense of time and rhythm and emotion is how the film really earns its title.

The Blood of a Poet is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1591

The shaky picture proved a house's grain.
A heavy fox had lost his eyes in June.
A group of boys await a homeward train.
The speaking bird foretold a summer moon.
A flower horde destroyed the diamond field.
A boring sport's redundant spit and breath.
The des'prate hands of wheat comprised the yield.
An autumn life's composed of April's death.
A dogless coil chills the thought for weeks.
So marble steps convey the child's dream.
Transmuting thoughts we talked of double peaks.
For time has come when double visions team.
A leafy morning brought the freshness late.
A lonely mountain seeks a Gollum mate.

Cold Chicken Feathers

I guess I didn't need to go all the way to Shiga to see snow because we had plenty right here in Kashihara this morning.

Though, sadly, it didn't pile up. Despite the fact that the snowflakes were as big as chicken feathers and it snowed non-stop for over four hours there was almost no sign it'd snowed less than an hour after it stopped. Even these rice fields were all but clear of snow an hour after it stopped.

That's the view from a fourth floor classroom of the school where I'm working now.

So, yes, it's been cold around here lately. A few days ago, I took my hand out of some hot water and noticed steam coming off my fingers that looked like smoke.

I was reminded of the Beast's claws smoking from the hot blood of a recent kill in Jean Cocteau's Belle et la Bete.

I guess it wasn't so far fetched after all.

The Boiling Mirror

I know some people express their affection through constant arguments and manipulation. I've always had trouble understanding why this is so but I found 1950's Les Enfants Terribles captivating. The tale of two beautiful siblings who live together, their eternal war on each other and their shared fantasies, it's also a singular combination of vision from two of France's greatest filmmakers, Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau.

Cocteau wrote the source novel and the screenplay and provides voice-over narration for the film. He also directed one scene when Melville was ill--Melville is the film's credited director. That some have suggested the movie was really directed by Cocteau and Melville was entirely employed on more technical aspects of production (Melville was also the producer) isn't surprising. It was only Melville's second feature, after Le Silence de la Mer, and Les Enfants Terrible, with its raucous dialogue and reverence for beauty, seems much more like Cocteau than the director who established himself as a great maker of noir.

But there is at least one important carryover from Le Silence de la Mer; one of that film's stars, Nicole Stephane, plays Elisabeth, one of the siblings, and supposedly this is one of the primary things that convinced Cocteau that Melville was the man to adapt his novel. But it was apparently in spite of Melville's disapproval that Cocteau insisted on casting Edouard Dermit as Paul, the other sibling, who was too old for the part of the high schooler whose delicate frame confines him to bed for days after being hit with a snowball.

Yet Dermit has a wonderfully Cocteau-ish look and, more importantly, bears a remarkable resemblance to Stephane. It's easy to see the two as reflections of each other, ever bound by attraction and repulsed by over-familiarity. They have a game where they compose a fantasy together and have a drawer where they've agreed to keep odds and ends as "treasures". They shoplift together compulsively--their rule is that they must never steal something that might be useful. Cocteau informs us in voiceover that it's Elisabeth's policy never to thank anyone for anything--she, "always expects miracles." It's as though the two maintain their dreamworld territory by denying any normal physical or emotional reactions to the rest of the world.

Maybe this gives their fights the freedom to be so absolutely brutal. In one scene, Paul tosses a glass of milk on Elisabeth while she's in bed. In another, the two fight so unrelentingly for the bath that both angrily pull their cloths off in their stampede for the water. Of course, it seems there must be an erotic element to their relationship, which seems confirmed when Elisabeth becomes jealous that Paul's fallen for another girl. This other girl, Agathe, is played by Renee Cosima who also played the boy who threw the snowball at Paul. Everyone remarks on the resemblance. Once again, Paul is attracted to the face of one who's brought him pain but by a trick of fate that same face belongs to a gentle, loving young woman. Of course, Elisabeth won't have it and that's where the manipulations start.

Whoever's most responsible for this cruel, fascinating film, it's certainly always a pleasure to look at. Les Enfants Terrible is available on The Criterion Channel.