‘Les enfants terribles‘, made in 1950, is the result of the collaboration of two very talented filmmakers. Jean Cocteau was one of the most famous French writers – poet, playwright, novelist – of the 20th century, but also a screenwriter, actor and film director. He chose, however, for the screen adaptation of his highly successful novel ‘Les enfants terribles’ to be directed by the young Jean-Pierre Melville. He was at that time a great hope and his debut film, ‘Le silence de la mer’, also a screen adaptation, but after Vercors, had impressed Cocteau. The writer thought, perhaps, that he would be able to intervene and dominate the directorial aspects as well, but Melville was already not only a director with personality but also an assertive nature. Conflicts between the two during production became the stuff of legend and gossip. The result of the thorny collaboration between the two, however, is impressive – a very special film, but one that needs to be seen and appreciated differently than an ordinary film.
The terrible children are Elisabeth and Paul, sister and brother, from a wealthy Parisian family. The obsessive connection between them is the basis of the story in the film. Elisabeth is a few years older, and takes care of both their sick mother and Paul, who is also sickly and prefers to spend his days in bed. The two live in the same room and their intimacy borders on incest. They build a universe of their own, with a setting full of decadent symbols, with cruel and sophisticated psychological games. When other characters appear in their lives – Gerard who is in love with Elisabeth, Michael who marries Elisabeth but not for long, and Mariette who falls in love with Paul, the pair of siblings will draw them into their maze of intrigues, while keeping intact their feelings for each other. Paul will do it through passivity, Elisabeth through actions bordering on crime. Their subtle games are constantly played on the edge of an abyss from which death lurks, in the good tradition of existentialist literature.
‘Les enfants terribles‘ is one of Melville‘s films that doesn’t feature gangsters, but the psychological tension can be said to have the intensity of some of his best thrillers. The characters seem to live permanently between dream and reality (by the way, Paul is the sleepwalker). To reproduce this atmosphere, Melville resorts to off-screen voice, with the text extracted from the novel and in Cocteau‘s reading. The words complement the visual compositions excellently here. The cinematography belongs to Henri Decaë, with whom Melville had also worked in his debut film, with whom he and other creators of the Nouvelle Vague generation would work with in many of their later famous movies. The first scene of the film (a snowball fight) is also shot in a choreographed dynamic, with a mobile camera, which anticipates techniques that would become familiar a decade later. Decaë combines unusual angles, spectacular staging and emphasizing the psychology of the characters. The Elisabeth – Paul – Gerard triangle is also similar to the triangles of lovers that we will find ofter in the Nouvelle Vague films. Nicole Stéphane, the actress who plays Elisabeth, dominates the cast. Descendant of the Rothschild family and a fighter in the Resistance (like Melville), she had an incredibly short screen career. What a pity. The music is built on the baroque sounds of Vivaldi’s and Bach’s music. The style of speaking the lines seems taken from the stage of the French Comedy, and the effect is that of watching a spectacular and passionate opera performance. As with an opera performance, however, convention must be understood and respected. Viewers who do not understand and do not know it run the risk of not enjoying this fascinating and decadent film.