L'Eternel Retour

Made during the German Occupation in World War II, Cocteau's updating of the Tristan and Isolde legend remains a sadly neglected film, largely because postwar critics jumped on the Aryan blondness of the two leads to tag it as collaborationist. Actually the pair look more like a tribute to camp chic, drifting photogenically but sexlessly through the grand passion that unites the lovers in death. But the film itself, broodingly set in an ancient castle overhanging the sea, has a rare, dreamlike beauty that captures the quality of legend almost as successfully as La Belle et la Bête. Some stunning performances, too, not least from Pieral as the malevolent dwarf and de Bray as his horribly complacent mother.