Les Enfants Terribles Out on Criterion

One glorious film: Les Enfants Terribles is coming out in a beautiful edition on Criterion. Based on the novel by Jean Cocteau who gave the project to director Jean-Pierre Melville after seeing his first film, it’s a perfect marriage of style and subject. The complex relationship between a brother and sister and the destructive games they play is basis for this strange tale. Paul (played by another Cocteau “protégée," Edouard Dermithe) is injured by a snowball thrown after school by a boy he’s in love with. Under doctor’s order, he is forced to stay at home in bed, nursed by his adoring sister Elisabeth (Nicole Stephane). They create this hothouse hermetically sealed world and the people they draw in eventually suffer for it. For years Mellville (who went on to direct Army of Shadows and Le Samourai) bristled when people described this as a “Cocteau” movie, and indeed it does feel like one, but Cocteau was on the set during the filming and considering the source it’s understandably “Cocteau-ish” in mood. Who cares -- it’s stunning.