The Eagle with Two Heads

A queen whose husband was killed on their wedding day has worn a veil for ten years and does not appear in public. On the anniversary a wounded anarchist enters her room: he has come to kill her, and he is the double of her husband. Instead of turning him in she hides him, and over three days a negotiation begins between them. The film is not interested in political intrigue. It is interested in the right to choose one's death: the queen is sustaining a life already over and sees the man who has come as the one who will end it. What passes between them is less love than an agreement. The form is entirely theatrical: palace rooms, long tirades, scenes running close to real time. Adapting his own play, Jean Cocteau does not cut the text; he carries the stage into cinema by moving the camera around the actors. The source is Cocteau's 1946 play, and Edwige Feuillère, the queen from the stage production, takes the lead. Jean Marais plays the double role and, as Cocteau's long-standing collaborator, stands at the centre of the film. Who it is for: viewers who like Cocteau's cinema, romantic tragedy and theatrical style. Who it is not for: anyone after realism. The dialogue is openly literary and the characters come from the stage rather than from life.