The Terrible Children (1950) User Reviews

Bizarrely erotic and weird--this is NOT everyone's cup of tea!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 5 December 2011]

As I sit and watch "Les Enfants Terribles", I wonder why it took me so long to see this film. After all, I've reviewed a couple hundred French films AND Jean-Pierre Melville is perhaps my favorite French director and I completely adored several of Jean Cocteau's films. So why did I wait so long---and is it worth the wait? Jean Cocteau wrote this story and narrates. And, according to IMDb, he even directed a tiny bit of the film--though whether these portions were actually used in the film isn't clear.

The Story begins with teenager Paul being injured in a snowball fight. Instead of just getting up and walking it off, it seems that the blow to his chest revealed some underlying congenital defect--and Paul is sent home for bed rest. In fact, the doctor tells his sister, Elisabeth, that he's to stay home--he'll be bedridden because any sort of exertion can kill him. So, Elisabeth takes care of him--and the longer they are together, the closer they become. Yet, weirdly, there also is a very strong love-hate relationship between them--as they bicker nonstop and seem as if they hate each other--yet NEED each other. There's a TONS more to the film than this--including some undercurrents of bisexuality, a weird relationship with another girl and LOTS of incestuous and Freudian stuff as well! But, I don't want to ruin it by revealing too much...but it's weird.

So is this a film that you'll like, probably not. It's not especially enjoyable--nor is it really meant to be. Instead, it's a bizarre experimental film--one of the very first New Wave films that explores incest and bisexuality and icky Freudian stuff! As I said, not what the average viewer will enjoy. But, the plot IS original and the camera-work exceptional. And it is worth seeing...once. An unusual experiment to say the least! And NOT a film to watch if you are depressed or want to see some happy ending!

Either you play the game, or you 'play the game' ...

[ElMaruecan82 · 8/10 · 30 September 2011]

'Playing the game' as the idiomatic expression meaning 'pretending to' in French. While Elizabeth played the game, Paul 'played the game'. And what a captivating game!

A vertiginous ceiling-shot shows the four protagonists visiting their future house, walking on a chessboard-like roof. Like the human pieces of the infamous game whose mastermind is Elizabeth. Elizabeth, portrayed by Nicole Stéphane in a grandiloquent operatic BAFTA nominated performance, as the overly protective sister of Paul, Edouard Dermitte, a 16-year boy with a fragile health. An ambiguous relationship constantly flirting with incest. One of the strangest cinematic pairings. "Les Enfants Terribles" from Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean Cocteau.

Emotionnally speaking, "Les Enfants Terribles" plays as a succession of build-ups, twists and climaxes, guided by the beautiful sound of Bach and Vivaldi's Concertos, plunging you in the confusing mix of emotions that inhabit the hearts of Elizabeth, Paul, and their friends who undergo their caprices with a remarkable patience. The sound of violins takes your soul and transports you in the middle of a hypnotic nonsense when the narration from Jean Cocteau tries to enlighten us on what should rather be kept secret, the whole movie is about secrets, deadly and dangerous but did we need to hear what was going in the hearts or the souls of these twisted individuals while their actions, their expression were more eloquent?

The film belongs to the theater world, which is even more spectacular on a cinema's screen, it conveys a sense of disturbing intimacy between Elizabeth and Paul who love to argue so much that they fail to hide how needy they are -in fact- to each other. Elizabeth is the tempestuous 'Yin' to Paul's tormented 'Yang', the mother, the mistress, the friend, enslaving Paul in a relationship to which he can only react through sarcasm and irony, to better hide this discomfort. In fact, the only self-confident character is Elizabeth, the one who pulls the emotional strings of every one, echoing the discomfort of the viewer.

But once you get used to that discomfort, "Les Enfants Terribles" becomes the mirror of its own emotions: unpredictability, zaniness, theatricality, where even the artistic conflict between the two film-makers have ironically served the film's artistry and unique sensation. Cocteau's prose is nuanced and monotonous while the characters are deliberately over-the–top, when the movie could have been 'good' by classic standards, it became disturbing to the level of genius and making you realize that it's no use to rationally analyze something that invites to spontaneously let the emotions dictate your feelings.

"Les Enfants Terribles" is an exhilarating experience, a kaleidoscope of emotions that creates a harmonious symbiosis between every form of artistic expression : music, theater, literature, it looks artificial sometimes, but it's so gutsy and brave that any attempt to decorticate the meaning of one scene separately is vain and pointless. The whole package works, the opening is intriguing, what follows disturbs, and the ending leaves with you a "wow" feeling that requires catching your breath before reconsidering what you saw. Nicole Stéphane IS over the top in the same perfect intensity that turns her into the secret daughter of Norma Desmond (from a masterpiece of the same year). She's so absorbed by her exclusive lust toward Paul that she can't behave normally without betraying her true nature, the only way to manipulate is to keep this exuberant feel as the right vehicle of her inner emotions.

And Elizabeth is such an omnipresent character, almost God-like, that one should consider her as part of Paul's persona, and this is the only way to appreciate Dermitte's performance. While he could be seen as a lousy, or too histrionic actor, I feel there's something deliberately missing inside him, as if half of his soul belonged to Elizabeth, keeping it secretly among the various objects that constituted the treasured bric-a-brac. Look at his mouth, like paralyzed, unable to express one positive emotion, Paul rarely smiles and his smiles are not convincing because Nicole possesses the best of him, and his doom is that he ignores this or 'plays the game', even when his most feminine part inspires his male crush. Elizabeth and Paul are the same persona, and the film carries many Bergmanian undertones ... even illustrated in the poster.

The dazzling black-and-white cinematography conveys the bizarre aspect of this duality. There's a beautiful shot of Paul sleepwalking on the stairs, appearing all in shadows like a ghostly figure only capable to escape from Elizabeth and emerge from the light when he's asleep, as if his subconscious was the only refuge from the doom that would lead to his demise. The surrealistic aspect gets more palpable as the movie progresses: in a beautiful dream sequence, Paul walks backwards solemnly as if Nicole managed to bring him back under her power, which she did by conjuring the only thing that could have deprived her from Paul, his love for Agathe. But Paul by sending the letter to himself, instead of Agathe, signed his own death warrant, proving that he couldn't see his life with anyone but him, with this very part of him cruelly belonging to his sister.

That was Paul's tragedy and Elizabeth is the Goddess. The film borrows many elements from the Greek mythology, so cherished by Cocteau, and sublimated by the noir genre to which Melville would give its letters of nobility. Paul and Elizabeth's fates were already traced, they could live in the biggest room ever, there would be no room for Gérard, and certainly not Agathe, who unmasked Elizabeth's villainous side. Were the actors too old for these parts? No, their troubling Aryan blonde and curly hair with intense azure eyes and their marble statue-like beauty reminded of the forbidden love between Electra and Orestes with the noir direction underlining the troubling effect of their games ...

... are they adult playing like kids, or kids playing adult games … does it really matter?

A game of psychological warfare

[davidmvining · 8/10 · 25 April 2022]

Based on a novel by Jean Cocteau who also wrote the screenplay and provided the narrative voiceover, Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terribles is a psychological duel between a brother and sister that takes them from poverty to wealth, all while playing a dangerous game that they can't stop playing. Expanding his cast of characters from three to four, essentially, Melville also expands the visual scope to tell the story of two terrible children who can't help but hurt each other.

Paul (Edouard Dermit) gets hit with a snowball in the chest at school, leading to his collapse. His weak chest simply could not take the hit, no matter how light, and he's taken home to be nursed by his older sister Elisabeth (Nicole Stephane) who also nurses their invalid mother. Witnessed by Gerard (Jacques Bernard), a school friend of Paul's, we see the contentious relationship between the two siblings. She doesn't believe that he's sick. He doesn't care that she doesn't. She still takes care of him because to the two of them it is all just a game that they must play, and that defines the entirety of the film. Whether we're told explicitly or not, the two never stop playing their game with loose rules other than an embrace of danger and egging each other on.

When their mother dies, the two are left alone (presumably with some money from their mother which allows them to survive, along with the good doctor deciding to pay for their maid), and they grow inward. Gerard often stops by to see the status of his friends, and the room they share becomes increasingly chaotic and messy, despite both siblings insisting that they would have clean rooms on their own. The three take a vacation to the seaside (banked by Gerard's rich father) where they extend their game into petty theft. One must steal something of no practical use from a small shop while Gerard's father purchases a hat. When Gerard steals a brush, far too useful an object, he must go back and steal a watering can (also a useful object, but far larger).

It seems as though their games are taking a toll on them both, and Elisabeth decides that she must get out and get a job, despite Paul's protestations. She takes the job of a model in a clothing store and quickly becomes friends with Agathe (Renee Cosima) and brings her home to live in their mother's room (that neither of the two siblings ever took up their mother's room is never mentioned, but it feeds the subtext). It's obvious that there are emotions running around everywhere under the surface. Gerard hanging around only really makes sense if he finds an attraction to Elisabeth. Paul ruthlessly insults Agathe, but she sticks around because she obviously has feelings for him. Elisabeth lords over it all, playing her game, even as it becomes obvious that people are feeling real pain over what's going on.

Elisabeth, through her work, meets a rich American Jew Michael (Melvyn Martin) and the two quickly marry, though he dies in a car accident between their wedding and their honeymoon. The death leaves Elisabeth with a huge house that she invites her brother and two friends to occupy with her, and with no need for money or any other actions for basic survival, the quartet fester and stew in that house. They all have separate rooms, but they end up sleeping in Elisabeth's together. When Paul can't take it anymore, he moves all of his things, recreating the room they shared at their mother's home, in the great hall of the house, attracting many visits from his fellow denizens of the house and also going only as far as he can in striking out independently from Elisabeth. He's dependent on her both financially and emotionally. Despite the ill-natured morass that she creates, he cannot get away.

And that's when Elisabeth takes the game too far. She never seems to think so, despite her final actions, but it all just feels like extensions of an insular, destructive game of a malignant child. The subdued emotions of her tenants come to the surface. Agathe admits to Elisabeth that she loves Paul. Paul writes a letter of love to Agathe but, in his poor emotional state, addresses the letter to himself instead of to Agathe. Elisabeth finds the letter, reads it, and destroys it, playing both sides against each other by telling Agathe that Paul has no feelings towards her but Gerard does while telling Paul that Agathe loves Gerard. She also confronts Gerard, telling him that Agathe loves him, but it's obvious that Gerard only falls into the proposed relationship to keep Elisabeth happy.

Poison is introduced, Elisabeth quotes Lady Macbeth, and the whole thing comes to its end with death in a very French manner.

Les Enfants Terribles is the story of a woman with no morals, perhaps a nihilist, who sees everyone around her as her playthings. She twists and manipulates everyone to suit her own interests which never seem to be more than filling time. It's a portrait of decadence and maliciousness in the form of children (really, all four main actors easily look like they're in their twenties even though Paul and Gerard are supposed to be about sixteen). Stephane is the standout of the cast, in a marked contrast to her nearly silent role in La Silence de la Mer, constantly talking and scheming with her eyes.

As a psychological drama, I find Les Enfants Terribles to be involving, twisting, and terrifying. Perhaps older generations are always scared of the next generations turning out as monsters.

Creative Schizophrenia - Two Great Auteurs Don't Mix!

[dwingrove · 8 April 2002]

First, I have to admit that I nearly didn't write this comment at all. I read a rave review of Les Enfants Terribles by an earlier user and agreed with (almost) every word of it. What more was there to add? Then I searched my soul for a day or so, and had to admit that this film REALLY does not work for me - brilliantly directed, skilfully acted, moodily photographed and lyrically scored though it may be.

For all its many splendours, this Melville film of a Cocteau novel suffers from a malady I can only describe as "creative schizophrenia." It is recognisably a work by two highly individual artists, each of whom creates his own distinctive and magical world. No film by Melville could ever be mistaken for anybody else's. The same is true of Cocteau.

How do these two worlds mix together? To put it bluntly, not at all. This is most apparent in the (mis)casting of the androgynous and incestuous brother-sister duo. With his porcelain cheekbones and languid sensuality, Edouard Dhermitte is a classic Cocteau actor. (He was, in fact, Cocteau's lover at the time.) With her politicised Left Bank angst and 'butch' vitality, Nicole Stephane is a classic Melville heroine. (She had starred in his much finer 1947 film Le Silence de la Mer.) These two actors scarcely seem to belong on the same planet, let alone in the same family.

Still more disheartening is the utter lack of allure of Renee Cosima, a pudgy young ingenue who is cast as the brother's two ambisexual love objects - the sadistic schoolboy Dargelos and the lovelorn model Agathe. Lacking even the tiniest flicker of charisma, whether as a man or as a woman, Cosima makes it difficult for us to empathise with the hero's erotic longings, or to care much about the hothouse melodrama that breaks loose as a result.

Try as I might to warm to this film, I cannot help imagining it with a different cast. As the brother and sister, Helmut Berger and Dominique Sanda from The Garden of the Finzi Continis. As the androgynous sexual pirate Agathe/Dargelos, maybe Katharine Hepburn from Sylvia Scarlett or Indrid Thulin from The Magician or (why not?) the immortal Anne Carlisle from Liquid Sky. Most important of all - and I know this smacks of heresy - I would much rather Cocteau had directed it himself. One great auteur should be enough for any film.

David Melville

decadent and fascinating

[dromasca · 9/10 · 18 October 2023]

'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.

'Suicide is a mortal sin'.

[brogmiller · 6/10 · 20 April 2020]

Jean Cocteau wrote his novel 'Les enfants terribles' in 1929 whilst in a clinic undergoing a cure for opium addiction. He has entrusted the direction of the film version to Jean-Pierre Melville who freely admits that he made it 'essentially to please myself without much thought of the public'. Therein I think lies the problem for although he has captured the claustrophobic spirit of the original I felt somehow disengaged to the extent that the eventual fates of brother and sister left me unmoved.

Cocteau had launched the career of Jean Marais but by comparison Edouard Dermithe is alas too bland to be of interest as Paul and it is left to the astonishing Nicole Stéphane as Elisabeth to make up the deficit. Her performance is electric and it is to be regretted that her career was hampered by a car accident.

Cocteau was deeply hurt by the drubbing the film received and typically referred to its critics as 'completely ignorant.' However, with the passing of time this bizarre, off-beat and disturbing opus has acquired cult status.

Pretty good early Melville

[guiltyascharged-1 · 8/10 · 28 December 2007]

Before he made the Bob Le Flambeur, the "Grandfather of the New Wave" made this film in collaboration with Cocteau. The cinematography in this film is pretty good, and Melville does a good job at replicating the feel of a Cocteau film. This is perhaps Melville's most "Un-Melville" film. There's no hardened men or bank robbers to be had here. The portrait of a sister/brother relationship is well-done and believable, and easily holds your attention the entire film.

The imagery is great, particularly towards the ending and the shot of the dead mother. It's almost dream-like! With this film, and Bob, it's easy to see why Melville was such and inspiration to future New Wave directors such as Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, etc. Highly recommended, especially to Cocteau/Melville fans!

Les enfants terribles

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 3 August 2012]

Another KVIFF viewing of Jean-Pierre Melville's tribute section, after LE SAMOURAI (1967, a 9/10). This one is Melville's earlier work, a collaboration with Jean Cocteau, an adaption of Cocteau's internationally famed eponymous novel, which at first glance would seem to be deviated from Melville's comfort zone, the film has a more explicit portrayal of humanity in its darkest corner, and the fodder has a comprehensive penchant to theatricality and character study.

A quite conspicuous clash comes from the cast, to wit Edouard Dermithe, the leading protagonist as Peter, who would not be Melville's first choice but thanks to Cocteau's relentless insistence (Edouard is said to be his lover at that time), notwithstanding his dandy contour is unable to deliver any conceivable conviction which his role should have embodied, no matter how many close-ups swooping upon his statuesque face, it is certainly beyond the rescue even Melville had exerted himself to the utmost. Nicole Stéphane and Renée Cosima, on the other hand, are the messiahs of the cast, several emotion-eruption takes are right to the point.

At least Melville still manifests his capacity is other department of the films, the cinematography from DP Henri Decaë infuses very seclude intimacy during the siblings' scenes when a whiff of incestuous ambiguity permeates the whole frame. When the setting moves to the grand apartment in the latter part in the film, the spiderweb of deconstructing an immoral subterfuge foiled with riveting and labyrinthine shots culminates the film with a quite amazing coda, which by no means should be even scarcely credited for Mr. Dermithe.

So the win-win combo seems not to fire up to one's expectation, and it is a quite qualified candidate needs a remake, then who is the proper person at the helm? I dare to suggest Jacques Audiard if one must be French.

Unconditional lover of Cocteau universe

[bob998 · 9/10 · 22 January 2004]

This is a great film; I've seen it a couple of times on TV recently. Nicole Stephane is astonishing, her face a mask of passion, deviousness, grief. She had the glam-butch look that only Sharon Stone today has mastered. Edouard Dermithe wasn't much of an actor--Cocteau "rescued" him from the coal-mines of the north of France--but he's as spoiled as the story needs. Renee Cosima is fabulous as Dargelos/Agathe; I love her fish-mouth and hoarse voice, and those plump arms. A MUST.

Technically stunning but lacking a key element

[beanofdoom · 7/10 · 24 August 2009]

This film, technically and aesthetically stunning, is certainly successful in establishing a mood that is pervasive throughout the entire work. I imagine that Melville must have been pleased with the finished product but I do wonder how Cocteau felt about it.

My curiosity stems from the fact that the images of the written work were always successfully employed by the imagination to increasingly sinister effect. The siblings were basically two parts of the same being and their histrionics as well as their torture of each other felt as natural and unremarkable as a self-deprecatory comment made to oneself about some minor mistake. This histrionic nonchalance was missing from the movie. Watching the characters harass and chase each other around was a two dimensional representation of a dynamic that would, i think, have been far more successfully established by relying less upon running and screaming. Their games had an emotionally taxing impact upon those in their presence and this wasn't established too well either. Ultimately, I guess that most of these observations can be attributed to actor/observer effect, the difference between being a part of a story, as in a well written book, and watching a scene. I just found the characters to be somewhat laughable at times in the film and I imagine that had I've not read the book, the ending may have seemed excessive and self-indulgent.

I genuinely think that the creative realization of this work paid too much attention to the aesthetics/mood of place and not nearly enough to aesthetics/mood of dynamic. What results is a well-acted, aesthetically pleasing, character study of a few individuals that never really feel real. Melville is often guilty of this but for his subject matter, which is typically more plot driven, it works. The hustlers and lowlifes of the pulp era noir flicks aren't supposed to be accessible. Those films unfold like clockwork scenes performed by little tin wind-up thugs-- and its perfect, don't get me wrong. But the power of the 'two sides of the same coin', co-dependent siblings fable is the pervasive sense of dread that one feels as the dynamic starts to unravel; this is absent from this film. Nonetheless, I give this film seven stars for being a provocative work by two artists for whom I have a great deal of respect.

'Dead Ringers' is an example of the same fable that I thought was remarkably well realized. Of course it's nowhere near as good a movie from a technical standpoint.

Surprisingly banal

[gbill-74877 · 4/10 · 7 December 2019]

Too much bickering, not enough depth or psychological insight into these strange siblings to truly get invested in them. Cocteau's script and narration didn't do anything for me, and it became a chore to finish about halfway through. The incest and bisexuality alluded to wasn't as shocking as intended, in part because I was watching it nearly 70 years later, and in part because it just didn't feel authentic. That may have been part of the dreamlike, ambiguous point, but it just seemed banal and like it was trying too hard for its own good. Loved the score though.

Quotes: Lise: Paul, darling, I'll lie down and we'll play the game. Paul: I'm too used to playing it by myself.

Melville and Cocteau- combo extraordinaire

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 12 October 2007]

A lyrical, novelistic tragedy/love story, Les Enfants Terribles was the second film by Jean-Pierre Melville, but only made it under the collaboration of Jean Cocteau (the two basically wrote and produced the film together), who had already made a few films, and was highly acclaimed for his poetry, painting, and drug addictions. For this story, it's actually a bit of a departure from Cocteau (even though it contains elements from past works, such as the snowball fight and a few notable props from Blood of a Poet), as well from Melville's later, more notorious crime films. It's an unusual story about siblings, and the kind of love that seems to stretch somewhere between incest and regular brother/sister love. For Cocteau, it's one of his most provocative works, and for Melville, it's safe to assume that it is a work that is assuredly set aside from anything he did before or after.

The story is in a sense almost classical and romantic from literature, with Cocteau providing narration that sounds like it could be even more beautiful to read on paper than to hear. Paul (Edourard Dermithe, perfect at being stubborn) gets hit with a rock during a snow-ball fight, and on and off for the rest of the film he's confined to a bed. While in his decorated 'room', he is nursed, in an intense and often begrudging manner, by his sister Elisabeth (Nicole Stephanie, perhaps her best performance in a small career) who sometimes plays a 'game' with his brother. While this 'game', when showed in action with their dim friend Michael (Martn), may be a little off-putting, or rather it may distance someone from their total immaturity, what makes it work for one is how Cocteau brings in conflict with these situations, how everything they argue about (even the ridiculous things) have some level of importance. Then, when the first turn comes (their mother dies), Elisabeth tries to move on to another man, which leads to another (diminished) tragedy, and soon four of them (also a woman taking care of Paul, played sweetly by Cosima) are living in a huge house.

Then comes a third act (if it is a third act, I was not sure how his original play was structured or fit by him and Melville into the film), and that packs some of both filmmakers best creative strengths. There's a conflict set-up that richly, strongly gives a larger weight to not only Elizabeth, but also Paul, who for a good lot of the film has been rather stand-offish and crude. What comes out is something that, even if it's not extraordinary, is what one likes to see in a basic tragedy- character development, a sense of suspense in what will happen, and (as it is Cocteau) a kind of poetic license with the narrative.

Melville, meanwhile, is rather expressive with his camera-work, with a few angles in scenes that are some of his most unforgettable (there's one involving an over-head near a staircase revealing the director's pure experimentalism). Not to mention (when used) a sensational soundtrack with Bach and Vivaldi, adding that classical/romantic feel. It's not either filmmaker/artist's absolute triumph, but it is certainly under-appreciated in terms of being available in the market (I had to reach out through ebay).

Some of the film is quite dark, some of it is quite light and cynical. It simply is one of the more notable post WW2 collaborations- themes and characters that make you think long after the film ends, while not over-staying its welcome.

The Strange Ones

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 27 December 2022]

"Paul" (Edouard Dermithe) is a young man who comes off rather badly after a snowball fight; one finds it's mark necessitating a visit from their doctor who advises bedrest - on a pretty permanent basis! He is to be looked after by his sister "Elisabeth" (Nicole Stéphane) with whom he shares a room. What now ensues is a hybrid of the sibling and the marital as their love to hate to love relationship, bordering on the incestuous (but never actually more than bordering) evolves. Both characters are handsome to look at, there are undercurrents of homosexuality and depravity - moral, certainly, physical less so - but I have to say I found the whole thing just a bit on the sterile side. It's not that their relationship together, nor with the rather unattractive "Dargelos" (Renée Cosima) needed any sort of visual consummation - it doesn't; but there is little if any chemistry to raise this above a rather statically, though beatifically crafted, story of people who can't live with, or without, each other. I am certainly no expert on Cocteau on Melville, but I ought not to have to be - this film should be able to stand it's own merits, and for me it is just a rather extended, unremarkable family squabble, with occasionally pithy but all to frequently petulant dialogue that 70 years after lacks any real potency.

Cocteau Vin (Domestic)

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 23 October 2012]

This is a film that possibly several will admire but almost none will actually like. Somewhat bizarrely there is not a scintilla of chemistry between any two people in the cast let alone the four principals. It's very possible that the two 'poets' who collaborated on the production, Jean Cocteau, author of the original novel (published in 1929) and a man fully capable of writing and directing a film entirely alone, and Jean- Pierre Melville who went on to enjoy - after this, his second feature film - a very distinguished career laced liberally with Masterpieces (L'Armee des ombres, Le Samurai, Le Cercle Rouge - were so disparate that it is as if Picasso were to collaborate with Breughel on a painting. There's a wonderful piece of pure chuzpah on the DVD when Gilbert Adair, who blatantly ripped off Les Enfants Terribles in 'The Dreamers' provides a narration.

Like Rimbaud's poetry

[danielhsf · 24 July 2007]

I saw this twice in a single day. And couldn't stop watching this after. Each time I start watching a Hollywood movie I can't help but surrender back to this surrealist nutjob where nothing is really definable.

Much of the literature I've read on this focus on the unlikely collaboration between Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville, with most putting it in context of Cocteau's other films. But I've always thought that Cocteau's Orphée, made during the same period, feels static and leaden amidst the classical style of its 50's direction. Les Enfants Terribles, while retaining a very classical premise, is completely revolutionary, resembling the unruly romanticism of Rimbaud's poetry. Nothing in the film stays the same - everything is constantly shifting; dyamics are constantly changing; even the sets change in subtle ways. Everything is made purposefully ambiguous and ambivalent such that paradoxes and contradictions abound in a single emotion. But ultimately, as all great Melvillian films are, the film is about the futility of humanity in the face of life and death.

I could go on and on about this movie; Melville is truly one of the great poets of cinema.

A chamber drama of horrors in human relationships deteriorating into possessiveness

[clanciai · 8/10 · 6 July 2017]

Technically a cinematic masterpiece with some excellent acting, particularly on the part of Nicole Séphane, but this Greek drama of a family and some young people living together with relationship complications doesn't give an altogether good taste in your mouth. Why are people usually so mean and cruel in French films? There is very little humanity here, love is not sincere, Elisabeth is callous and cruel and actually evil in her possessiveness, it's like one of the worst novels of Balzac (of whom Charlotte Brontë complained that he always gave her such a bad taste in her mouth), and this lack of humanity gives this masterpiece an ugly touch of almost inhumanity. Its brilliance fades into the shadows of the meaninglessness of its cruelty and pettiness, they don't do much else than quarrel and fight throughout the movie, and it all seems so pointless. Did Jean Cocteau have any meaning with writing this play except to produce a technically perfect analysis of how young people perish in the destructiveness of their relationships? The language, the photo, the acting, the music, everything is perfect but is consumed by its own pettiness in a dwindling spiral of human claustrophobia.

Strange and at times unnerving masterpiece, French style.

[stuka24 · 7/10 · 2 April 2009]

It took time to build, but when things got really rolling, I felt things could not happen otherwise. The settings and actresses are truly fine. The musical score, simple and obsessive, is perfect for this almost naive plot of youth angst "avant la lettre". The final monologue of Elizabeth about "how we have to make our lives ugly, unlivable" is worth many bad French Literature we "ought to read".

While I cannot say it has any meaning, the "form" of this movie is so good one just forgets. I agree with Amazon's Tom Keogh that it may be "a harbinger of pop narcissism", I thought exactly the same. Some images are beautiful, like Liz moving in the garden with barren trees and a cloudy sky, prodding elegantly in a house that doesn't belong to her.

Doug Anderson on Amazon wrote a good summary and a great line: "the unwholesomeness of the bond is immediately apparent" "little blonde fascist versions of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton-". The thread he and another reviewer have is interesting. I pinch from there my end line: "In film the "how" is everything".

Les enfants bon

[gizmomogwai · 8/10 · 21 September 2017]

Les enfants terribles is a 1950s psychological drama (thriller? horror?) depicting two siblings with dark secrets. When I finally sat down to watch it, I was curious as to how far it could/would go in depicting what's up with these two, who have an incestuous relationship. The 1950s were a time of censorship in Hollywood, but not so much across the Atlantic. As it turns out, the depiction here is largely implied, whispered; at first, it seems unfathomable, given how rotten they are to each other. As it goes on, you can kind of figure out what this film is going for, and it is intriguing- the two are siblings in a very real sense. Siblings squabble, they have sibling rivalry, but they can also love each other. This takes it to the umpteeth degree, and I hit that epiphany when they're in standing in the bathtub. Two people are standing outside the bathroom and hear the siblings screaming; one says they sound unhappy, the other says they're happy, and water comes pouring out from underneath the door crack. It goes a bit far in both directions (Come near me, come to my bedside, come off the top bunk and join me).

In other ways, Les enfants terribles picks up steam. The acting in the first scene may not be perfect; the narration feels slightly intrusive; but it picks up that dark feel, and we begin to feel, as the sister says, hypnotized.

My dad and grandpa were arguing last Thanksgiving about exactly what . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 7/10 · 27 March 2019]

. . . flick LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES inspired. My grandpa insisted that it was an English language color film from the 1900s (with some "Jim Dean"-type hot flash-in-the-pan actor named "Ryan Somebody") where two of the youths in a love triangle--perhaps the brother and sister--actually did the deed FOR REAL on the kitchen floor! Pops, on the other hand, contended that LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES gave rise to the TABOO series of "Blue Movies," especially the 17th through the 29th outings. (That's when Mom put her foot down, and changed the subject to candy porn.) Naturally, when I later saw LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES on the TV schedule, I watched it to see which of my ancestors was most correct. However, I still don't have a clue. It's as if some Balkan native had two weeks of English classes, and then tried to enjoy AND understand a print of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? subtitled in American. It's extremely difficult to believe that ANY U.S. film maker could keep up with the TERRIBLES captions and be "inspired" by this movie to create anything more erotic than a turnip.

A Melville-Cocteau Mix

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 13 July 2016]

Elisabeth is very protective of her teenage brother Paul, who is injured in a snowball fight at school and has to rest in bed most of the time. The siblings are inseparable, living in the same room, fighting, playing secret games, and rarely leaving the house; though Paul's friend Gerard often stays with them.

To me, Melville is most associated with crime thrillers, sort of a master of the post-noir or neo-noir genre. This is certainly not that, and really has nothing criminal or noir about it, though it does have the black and white cinematography. (Not "noir photography", but still.) What is this film trying to say? Who are the "terrible children"? What is jealousy, and what is attraction? Darned if I know.

Film Terrible

[dertwonshuw-51350 · 1/10 · 25 February 2021]

I am bored during the pandemic, but not bored enough to watch this movie. I popped it out of the DVD player after about 20 minutes, something I rarely do. Life is too short to watch bad movies and the reason I don't have to watch bad movies is because usually the IMDB rating is spot on. In this case it isn't. I think the reason is because the only ones who are reviewing the movie are those fans of "creative schizophrenia", of which I am not. But that's okay. Everyone has their own taste.

Troubling to Say the Least

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 24 February 2010]

This movie really creeps me out. I have trouble getting past the incestuous relationship of the principle characters. Once it established that they have this sexually tense thing going, sleeping in the same room, at each other's throats one minute, loving the next, I was able to look at it as a portrait of a kind of sickness, a sickness of the mind. It also has one of the most villainous characters ever portrayed in the cinema. It builds a continuous movement toward self destruction and annihilation. The acting is superb but I could barely look at the two. One part was the fact that a man who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties was supposed to be sixteen years old. The sister looks to be about thirty. Still, once I got over this, it totally captivated me. Anyway, I need to explore more of Melville's film to see where this led.

A Poor Movie Not Worth Watching

[mdkersey · 1/10 · 7 August 2009]

My wife joked: "It didn't cost much to make this movie: cheap furniture, an overturned car(an overturned _model_ of a car?), and a handful of not-very-pretty actors." And that's just the beginning of bad.

While viewing, we discussed several times whether it was worthwhile continuing to the end. My overall summary: "What the **** was _that_? We've wasted two hours!" The movie is too odd for most people to identify with. Cultural differences are not to blame: I've enjoyed every French movie I've seen except this one.

It's not worth discussing much more: other posts will tell you the plot. I have no idea why it has such a high rating on IMDb (7.4 at this time) - I would rate it negative if possible. Perhaps it's a piece of leftover intelligentsia flotsam/jetsam from the past.

Wish I had my two hours and wasted neurons back.

Great Example of Existentialism in Cinema

[dial911book · 2 January 2015]

I recently saw this movie, titled The Strange Ones in English, with English subtitles on TCM. I know a little French, and it seemed the English translations may not have captured all the nuances, but I'm not sure.

Before writing my review I wanted to see what more experienced or better informed people were saying, and I gather that most of the favorable reviewers liked the daring themes presented in stark black and white format with highly dramatic acting and artistic camera work. No doubt about it, this movie features all of those, and I did watch the whole thing because of those elements.

As with many French films I've seen over the years, this film presents an amoral view of life, i.e., there is no right or wrong, in fact in this movie there is no real consideration of right or wrong in the script or the story at all.

Minutes before my sister learned that her fiancée had been killed in a car accident, she asked me "what is existentialism?" I had a sense for the concept but I struggled to make it concrete. That awful phone call ended the conversation about literature, but I never forgot that moment. Now I know the answer, and The Strange Ones could well serve as a teaching tool in literature or philosophy classes; a person actively watching and thinking about this movie will "get" what existentialism is (in cinema anyway).

This film brilliantly presents strange people, maybe "weird people" better says it, going through unusual events in an unusual context. In existentialism nothing really has overarching meaning, so whatever happens, happens, and the results yield not so much tragedy as very dark farce.