Parking is a 1985 French fantasy musical film written and directed by Jacques Demy. Based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, it pays homage to Jean Cocteau's Orpheus by casting the Orpheus from that film, Jean Marais, in the role of Hades.
Orpheus is a world-famous pop singer with two great loves: Eurydice is his wife and a sculptress who designs his album covers, and Calais is his sound engineer and lover. At one of his concert rehearsals, an electrical malfunction briefly kills Orpheus, sending him to a dreary Underworld derived from the metro. Hades and Persephone (Marie-France Pisier) are willing to forgive the intrusion, as it was a clerical error, so long as Orpheus doesn't tell a soul where he's been. But when Eurydice dies of a drug overdose, Orpheus decides to head back to the Underworld to save his wife's soul, regardless of what Calais thinks.
This film contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Subplots like Orpheus's love for Calais and Persephone's contract with Orpheus don't really go anywhere once Eurydice dies, as he expends every effort to save her and dies shortly after failing.
- An Aesop: The message of the film is about the tenuousness and fragility of life and love, and to enjoy both while you can.
- Artistic Stimulation: Eurydice uses drugs to fuel her creative endeavors, which ultimately leads to her death via overdose.
- Back from the Dead: Orpheus dies before his time due to a clerical error and is promptly sent back to the world of the living.
- Big Fancy House: As part of his world-renowned status, Orpheus lives in a castle along with Eurydice, Calais, Aristaeus, and several servants.
- Bisexual Love Triangle: Orpheus wrestles with his feelings for Eurydice and Calais, even getting a song about his heart swinging between the two of them.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: The film has a dreary Underworld based on the metro, and Orpheus accidentally dies due to a clerical error which is corrected once he meets up with Hades.
- Compelling Voice: When Orpheus is reluctant to follow Charon, the latter uses glowing eyes and a hypnotic voice to force him to obey.
- Don't Look Back: Hades allows Orpheus to retrieve Eurydice so long as he doesn't look at her until they've both reached the living world; Orpheus temporarily solves the problem by using Eurydice's tourniquet as a blindfold. He takes it off to avoid falling, then turns too early to save Eurydice from a speeding car.
- Drugs Are Bad: Orpheus gets into a violent argument with Eurydice when he discovers she's been using again, and she later dies of an overdose.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Eurydice and Calais feel threatened and jealous of Persephone's attention towards Orpheus, while Calais privately admits to being jealous of Eurydice. His advice for Orpheus to move on after her death is particularly callous since he says it during the funeral.
- Karma Houdini: Dominique Daniel gets away with supplying the drugs that led to Eurydice's overdose and with killing Orpheus at the end.
- Loony Fan: Dominique Daniel runs an Orpheus fan club and trades drugs for Orpheus concert tickets, threatening Eurydice and Orpheus with blackmail and bodily harm if she doesn't get what she wants. At the end of the film, she kills Orpheus over being shown the door at his final concert.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Orpheus and Eurydice decide the best place to have sex right now is at one of the Underworld hotels. Hades calls them out on this.
- Mistaken for Insane: Calais increasingly questions Orpheus's sanity as he realizes his near-death experience and encounter with Hades and Persephone were true, especially after Eurydice dies and he tries to find a way back to the Underworld.
- Mundane Afterlife: The Underworld is a boring place full of hotels and galleries, with the general feel of an underground subway station.
- The Musical: Orpheus sings quite a few songs throughout the film, some at concerts and some directed to other characters.
- Mythology Gag: Aristaeus being stung by a bee is a nod to his role in the myths, where he was a beekeeper.
- Named by the Adaptation: Persephone is given the first name Claude.
- Nostalgia Filter: Hades is fed up with the Underworld's modernization and the resulting computer errors, and also laments that Persephone isn't as fond of him as she used to be. Later, Persephone admits she made a mistake by marrying Hades, hinting she was unhappy in the past as well.
- Portal Slam: Orpheus attempts to enter the Underworld the same way Charon's car did and crashes into a solid wall, wrecking his motorcycle and knocking himself out cold.
- Rescued from the Underworld: Orpheus has to rescue himself from the Underworld first after dying before he was supposed to, then heads back in to save Eurydice.
- Secret Relationship: Eurydice is unaware of Orpheus and Calais's romantic relationship and thinks they're just friends.
- Setting Update: From Ancient Greece to 1980s-era France.
- Sex Signals Death: Immediately after Orpheus and Calais make out, Eurydice dies of an overdose.
- Splash of Color: In the Underworld, anything colored red is bright and vivid when everything else, including the characters, is rendered in dull grey or dark blue tones.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Hades laments that Orpheus accidentally discovered the Great Secret—what happens after death—and only agrees to send him back on the condition he not tell anyone.
- Together in Death: After Orpheus is shot and killed, he reunites with Eurydice in the afterlife.
- Top Wife: While Orpheus loves Calais deeply, it's implied he cares for Eurydice just a bit more, as he's inconsolable without her and risks the Underworld to rescue her despite Calais loving him back.
- The Underworld: Hades' underworld is depicted as a gloomy metro full of waiting queues and the occasional hotel. Orpheus and Charon arrive there by car.
