I can sympathise with Michael and domino's reaction to the film, the main characters do seem to be made quite insufferable and there is a heady theatricality about the film, but that is kind of unsurprising given the Cocteau connections. However I did like it much more on a second and third viewing.
It is interesting that the character are meant to be teens but are played by obviously older actors. It gives an interesting sense of strangeness to our perspective on the story. The teenage squabbling played out by grown ups adds much more of a sense of sexuality to their fighting, as if there is more of an awareness to their games due to the actors looking old enough to understand the hidden subtexts - or to put it another way I don't get a sense of naivete in the playing of the scenes from the actors. (Also there is the interesting way that the other characters treat these "adult children" - would it be more controversial for Elisabeth at 16 or 17 marrying an older rich 'sugar daddy' than it would if the actors, at least, look like they are similarly aged? And what about the frisson of the adult actors teasing a little girl until her mother slaps her? Is it worse or better that a full grown couple are teasing her than if they were teens?) This is something that also seems to be made more apparent by the stylised surroundings and I think it is working to illustrate the larger theme of a vague awareness of desire and need but trying to push it away to the back of your mind - to not talk about it in case you are rejected or repulse others by your admission of interest.
It is part of what can make the film annoying in the way that it is one of those films where if the character's would just
talk to one another, to find the courage to admit to themselves and their companions their feelings, that things would go much better for everyone.
Concerning the Dargalos/Agathe part, I thought it did not exactly work in the best way for the story to have an actress performing both the male and female objects of desire. Despite Gilbert Adair calling it "unthinkable" in his commentary (as compared to the way the age difference might also be considered unorthodox?) perhaps a male actor performing both the parts might have actually been more effective. By giving the roles to an actress it seems to give primacy to Paul being more interested in the feminine characteristics of Agathe which coincidentally bear a little bit of a resmblance to the tearaway Dalgalos whom Paul had a "boy crush" on. If the parts had been played by a man then the situation would have been much more weighted to the effect that Dalgalos played on Paul and that Agathe was a chance to recapture or recreate his unrequited (and unacceptable?) love. While it would probably have been much more controversial to have a man playing both parts than a woman, it just feels as if the film is shying away from any idea of homosexuality - which might also be able to be seen in the sidelining of Gerard, of whom the narration in the taxi scene early on suggests that he has a similarly unrequited affection for Paul. Though this is tempered by a comment about remembering how Elisabeth called him "dear", so it could come across that the film is trying to suggest that he is just a 'really good friend' to them both.
I do like the way that the incest theme isn't fully developed though - I like the idea from Adair's commentary that the way events play out it might really be better if they
had committed incest, since denying it does not work out much better either! The way Paul and Elisabeth treat each other suggests there is a tension between them that is more than exasperation, there is a mutual need based on their constant companionship. Yet beyond the (rather crude!) metaphor of Paul throwing his 'milk' in his sister's face, there seems to be more of a mutual need there than a sexual interest.
Paul and Elisabeth have been given the keys to the house by first their mother and then Michael - characters who both die almost immediately upon their introduction. So the siblings have to create their own rules for living, even while they at the same time still live in rooms inside the larger apartment or house, despite seemingly being able to have the run of the place. They are haunted by the more responsible, but absentee, landlords. They also both seem to have been given validation in certain roles: Paul as the bedridden, needy invalid and Elisabeth as the harassed put upon maid to him, and they are enjoying playing their parts to the hilt!
The addition of Gerard and Agathe as a kind of surrogate family and potential lovers is interesting as they are more important in showing the way Paul and Elisabeth relate to each other than interesting in themselves. Gerard is most important in the shoplifting section where Elizabeth cows him into going back to steal something truly useless like a watering can. It anticipates the way Elisabeth will use the letter later on, as it is revealed in a comic coda (with an appropriate musical flourish!) that Paul and Elisabeth give the watering can to their housekeeper in an act that means that they were fully aware of a use to which to put that particular 'useless' object! Incidentally, it looks like Elisabeth uses the comb that Gerard first shoplifted in an ironic touch when she announces to Paul and Agathe that Gerard will be coming to stay with them in Michael's house, thereby 'completing' their stock company!
I like the idea that Elisabeth's use of the letter to attempt to manipulate the other three characters into a configuration that they might all find acceptable succeeds only through their complete lack of communication with each other! There is also a feeling that she is on very shaky ground though - there is no way that the charade can go on forever. She might know that "killers have to strike blow after blow" but it seems that she is setting up the tragic climax by being so possessive of her brother that she would rather destroy any chance of a relationship even with a surrogate in the form of Agathe. Then Dalgalos reappears as a spectral figure to provide Paul's escape - he gets to die in the presence of Agathe by Dalgalos's hands, so Elisabeth is shown in no uncertain terms that she will always come second in Paul's affections.
I much prefer the ending of the film than the other, more Cocteau-styled one discussed in the extra features. The Cocteau ending is described as more poetic but Elisabeth's death, bringing down the theatrical screens surrounding Paul's room as she falls was beautifully poetic in itself, made all the more powerful by not retreating into fantasy, instead showing the dead siblings with Agathe/Dalgalos standing between them, as they always were.
Actually that brings me to one of the extra features, Around Jean Cocteau, in which a couple of experts talk about whether the film is more Cocteau or Melville. Unsurprisingly (given that they are wandering around an exhibit dedicated to Cocteau during the piece!) they both say the film is "100% Cocteau". I didn't particularly like the piece as I think Melville was unfairly denigrated by both the critics - I feel Melville actually keeps a lot of the Cocteau touches (and there
are a lot of them) more grounded in a recognisable setting. I suppose it is similar to the Kubrick/Spielberg A.I. situation in that Spielberg would probably never have been able to make A.I. on his own, and produced a work dedicated to Kubrick using similar recognisable Kubrickian traits. Yet Spielberg also added a number of sentimental touches which are recognisably his. So the work is a sort of hybrid between the two filmmakers. I get the feeling that the situation was similar in the case of Les Enfants Terribles, only Cocteau was of course much more present during the shooting! So the end product is different in style from a film like Orphee but at the same time is not purely Melville-ian.
I love the score of the film, providing much needed warmth and depth to what is on the surface a shallow series of events about unlikeable, lost people. Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermithe are fantastic in their roles - I completely agree with Adair that you couldn't imagine a more Cocteau-styled pair!
One quick note on different takes in trailers: I noticed in the trailer that there is a brief shot of Elizabeth trying to pull the cloth off of Paul's lamp in their room in their mother's apartment that is shown in a wide shot from the foot and looking down on their beds. In the film itself the same action is shown looking over Paul's bed toward Elisabeth's as she comes across to try and grab the cloth.
I also noted in Adair's commentary that he stated that one of Nicole Stéphane's future producer credits was for
Swann In Love, though her role is not noted on her
imdb page. Is Adair wrong in this statement or does imdb need updating?
