Countries that don't fit on maps

Forget the outside world and abandon yourself to enchantments... Through the works presented in Le château des enchantements , you will see how thwarted passion, secrecy, the visible and the invisible captivate Jean Cocteau , how much philtres and spells are familiar to him. He proves it with his play The Knights of the Round Table in which he intoxicates his characters… And with The Eternal Return , a film whose screenplay is inspired by the legend of Tristan and Yseult! In Beauty and the Beast , he strives to make statues come alive and a mirror to reflect images “from elsewhere”.

The same strangeness in L'Aigle à deux têtes where a queen falls in love with the anarchist who looks exactly like her deceased husband… Then in Renaud et Armide which restores the complexity of courtly love. To give more singularity to these subjects, Jean Cocteau immerses them in atmospheres of unreality and magic within which Eros and Thanatos do not stop forging unbreakable bonds.

Through space and time, he builds his work. “I've been traveling in countries that aren't on the maps for many years! » Along your journey, you will discover the poet's ability to escape from the real world in order to create another… living up to his dreams!

Dominique Marny, Exhibition curator