Esquisse sur espace filmique et espace mental de la chambre dans Les enfants terribles de Cocteau et Melville

Abstract

Abstract This article looks at the film `£e£ E#/o#/s rerrJ.6/es' by Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville. The movie is a fiction drama about a brother and his elder sister who create an unrealistic romance. The scene of the bedroom unravels the shocking incest between siblings. Incest here might not be directly related to the Oedipus compl.ex, but it is in every way regarded as incest. Morally, a relationship between brother and sister, in this way, is a taboo to the community. The author's psychology is directed towards great Greek tragedy flgures, where he brings forth images related to the Greek mythology. He made an adaptation of `Oedipus Rex' in `£o Wczc47.#e lyifernale' . The article is divided in three parts: the first is a brief narration of the storyline; the second part is an analysis of the plot with two sub-categories- `cinematic space of the bedroom' and `mental space of the bedroom'; the third part is the collective imagination and symbols in the film, which look ~. the symbols of death, mirrors and stars. These three symbols are the materialisation of what cannot be seen: the death. This materialisation is an ffort to depict how the two children constantly lived with death, which represents the death of their mother and sister's husband. The bedroom is the place that united the brother and the sister at the physical level as well as at the mental level. In that bedroom, there is an evil spirit but also a treasure, which is the narcissistic instrument for both of them, Paul and Elisabeth. Furthermore, the fish that killed one and the gun that killed the other were both kept at the treasury. Paul and Elisabeth were deflnitely united in a fatal way, one to another despite the will to get married elsewhere. What they could not do in the flesh is spiritually realised beyond theworldwhenthesistercommitssuicidewhilecalculatingtheexactmoment of her brother's death. The detailed revelation of the whole shocking story is in the main text.