Orpheus simultaneously presents two aspects of the poetic process: that of the poet—Cocteau; and that of an ideal poetic instrument—the cinema….

The central theme of Orpheus is poetry's all-pervading power.

For Cocteau, as for every poet, poetry is the only truth, the only way of life, the only means of approaching essential reality. All else is the gross and perishable imaginings of earth-bound men. (p. 18)

Cocteau has poured into Orpheus all his obsessions; his preoccupation with mirrors (narcissism); his weakness for cruel and unmotivated practical jokes (poets cannot help being enfants terribles); his awe for the "holy"; his complete familiarity with all aspects of the dream, trance states and second sight (Cocteau experimented with almost every drug); and, finally, his penchant for mystification—an infantilism that has persisted to the threshold of old age.

To dazzle, to intimidate, to reveal marvels of all kinds, to invent new and unheard of universes, to evoke specters and phantoms, Prince Charmings or what have you—all this fascinates Cocteau. As he himself says, he wishes to appeal only to the child who lingers deep within each of us. For Cocteau, as for so many others like him, the lost paradise of childhood is the only kingdom over which every man may hope to reign. (p. 19)

Everything in Orpheus is symbolic. The principal symbols can be analyzed as follows:

1. ORPHEUS. The poet is a man as other men, but feels an imperative need, unknown to ordinary men, to extend the horizons of human perception, to explore and illumine human destiny, and to possess himself of new, hitherto unimagined realities….
2. EURYDICE. She is our literal, earthy, day-to-day life—that humdrum daily life men must continuously strive to enrich and extend, and which the poet must abandon ruthlessly from time to time so that he may be free to run after even the wildest chimeras.
3. THE PRINCESS. According to Cocteau, each of us has in our secret hearts an image of Death, of our Princess, who irresistibly allures and fascinates us. In the film the Princess is a double symbol—of Death, and of this truism: each man must die many times (within himself) before he can know himself truly and before he can become his true, un-self-deceived self….
4. THE MIRRORS. Although mirrors, as symbols, belong to Cocteau's private mythology, they are, of course, part of that folk-lore of psychology which is universal. In a mirror one perceives one's own decay. Hence, in the depths of a mirror slumber the riddles of life and death….
5. THE RADIOPHONIC MESSAGES. These phenomena constitute a somewhat puerile symbol for creative intuition. Cocteau believes there are certain human beings who possess a genius for pure invention, such as the poet and the mathematician. They bring to the rest of us news of realities which they have discovered and we did not suspect, and upon which mankind builds its future. (p. 20)
6. THE "ZONE". It is the region in which the Princess (Death) has her dwelling, from which she emerges to abduct her victims, and to which she carries them. It is a no-man's land, a hideous limbo strewn with rubble and garbage, and resembles the weird, distressful areas that encircle every city. (p. 21)

In Orpheus Cocteau has used the cinema to create a poetic, supernatural universe. The cinema can triumph over both space and time, can ignore our normal chronology, can dispense with distance, disregard the limitations of mere human beings. What is more, it can transform our world before our very eyes, can alter the appearance of reality, create fanciful realities, and make us believe in all of these metamorphoses. (pp. 21-2)

[There] can be no doubt that for two hours this universe of Cocteau's does exist for us and that we leave it with the feeling of having been there.

In order to materialize his imaginary world, which has its own laws and its own ways of coordinating the unrelated, Cocteau uses many subtle and amusing cinematic tricks, among which the following are the most outstanding:

1. SLOW MOTION. When Orpheus and Death's chauffeur, Heurtebise, cross over the "zone" which leads to the world "beyond," their gestures and movements are slowed down so that they appear to be moving in a dream. They glide along, moved only by invisible winds, like ectoplasmic emanations from a spiritist medium. The effect suggests the disintegration of personality that takes place in trance states and day dreams.
2. REVERSED OR CONTRARY MOTION. When Death, after transporting the mortal remains of Cégeste to her villa and depositing them there, wishes to awaken him to the reality of his new existence, she causes him to raise himself miraculously from the ground and resume a vertical position without the slightest effort. (pp. 22-3)
3. NEGATIVE IMAGES WITH REVERSED LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. When Death's limousine reaches the world "beyond," the landscape takes on a strange and mysterious coloring—the sky is black, the trees white….
4. THE MIRROR. Passing through mirrors is done either by double exposure, or by means of horizontal shots taken with a foreground of water.

Today few films utilize these tricks….

But at the same time we must reproach Cocteau for failing to create a more satisfying and convincing film. However much Orpheus may excite our admiration by the beauty and nobility of its theme, by its expansion of our mental horizons, and by its cinematic techniques, it is a disappointment because of weaknesses and obscurities in its plot. Although the story Cocteau unfolds, in an atmosphere of supernaturalism tinctured with gangster-film vulgarity, is dedicated to the exaltation of the poet and his mission, it is unconvincing, puerile, without motivation, frequently ridiculous, and sometimes incomprehensible. Its outmoded surrealism belongs to a past decade.

Poetry today demands new and different forms and symbols. It can find them in a new art of the cinema. (p. 23)