L'éternel retour (1943)

Marc (Jean Murat), a very wealthy widower, lives in Brittany in a medieval castle with his sister-in-law Gertrude (Yvonne de Bray), who has an elderly husband, Amédée Frossin (Jean d'Yd), and a son, the dwarf and schemer Achille (Piéral), who pretends to be a victim while directing his hatred at everyone. Gertrude has only one goal: to make the dwarf Marc’s heir. But Marc is very fond of his nephew Patrice (Jean Marais), a young man with platinum-blond hair whose dazzling beauty makes the dwarf and his parents jealous. Seeing how lonely his uncle is and wanting to make him happy, Patrice urges him to marry and offers to find him a wife himself. He arrives on a fishing island and finds her in Nathalie (Madeleine Sologne), a platinum-blonde-haired young woman and the tender-hearted victim of a brutal giant, Morholt (Alexandre Rignault). Not without difficulty, Patrice wrests Nathalie from the brute who had been mistreating her. Wounded in the fight, he is cared for by Nathalie at the home she shares with her aunt Anne (Jane Marken). Patrice proposes that Nathalie marry his uncle. Though troubled by her feelings for Patrice, she agrees in order to escape the island and Morholt. Before Nathalie leaves, Anne gives her a love potion to encourage affection, so that she can drink it with her future husband. To fool anyone who might be keeping watch, Anne has written “poison” on the label. At the castle, Nathalie marries Marc as planned; he is deeply in love with her. The wedding has barely taken place when Gertrude and Achille, jealous, try to break up the marriage. The dwarf Achille, as devious and jealous as ever, constantly spies on Patrice and Nathalie, who spend a great deal of time together. During a stormy night, Patrice suggests that Nathalie, who is still so proper, let loose by drinking cognac. She does, but Achille has poured into both their glasses what he believes is poison—which is actually the elixir that will reveal the young couple’s mutual passion and unite them forever, without their uncle’s knowledge. Marc, suspecting that the two lovers are in league, catches Patrice in his wife’s bedroom and sends him away. Nathalie runs off with Patrice, and the young couple take refuge in a mountain chalet. Several months later, while Patrice is away, Marc takes back Nathalie, who is ill. Desperate, Patrice returns to the city and goes to work for his friend Lionel, a garage owner. Lionel’s sister, the brunette Nathalie, falls in love with Patrice, who agrees to marry her on condition that he can see one last time the blonde Nathalie, who is wasting away in his absence at the castle. Patrice therefore goes to the castle one night, where the watchful Achille surprises him and shoots him with his revolver. The wound becomes infected. The brunette Nathalie tends to Patrice, but realizes that he loves the blonde Nathalie. As Patrice is gravely ill, Lionel sets out to fetch his beloved and promises to announce her return by tying the blonde Nathalie’s white scarf to the top of the boat’s mast. Marc agrees to accompany his wife to the bedside of his rival nephew. But they arrive too late: when the blonde Nathalie’s boat comes into view, the brunette Nathalie lies to Patrice, telling him she cannot see the agreed signal. Patrice no longer has the strength to cling to life and dies. The blonde Nathalie comes to lie beside him, so that she too may die. Transformed into recumbent effigies, Nathalie and Patrice find their ultimate fulfillment.