Le sang d'un poète

Excellent example of early surrealism on film. It is like going through a dream in which images come and go unbidden and with little apparent sense. This film is to be viewed in exactly that spirit. Switch off the need within you to make sense of it, to make it fit a linear state of mind and you will get the most out of it, and be a lot closer to what the director intended. Let the images wash over you, respond to them as images, not as tidy stories with beginnings, middles and endings that we are used to seeing in films. Like a dream it has it's haunting, almost familiar parts that we can know and recognize as well as the parts of our unconscious that we do not see as clearly but still we dream of them. Too bad surrealism in film never took off more than it did. Here we see a hint of the possibilities that still lie before us. Recommended highly.

Surrealist cinema was at the height of its powers between the mid 1920's to the mid 1930's. For obvious reasons, the silent era had been particularly well suited to visually strong films. Like Luis Buñuel's L'âge d'or, The Blood of a Poet is one of the later films from this period. And both incorporate limited sound. In the case of this movie it is mainly music, with a little synchronised dialogue. It's a film that gives the impression of having an overall purpose and meaning but I have to admit, I really have no idea what it was. I found it baffling but interesting enough in a strange dream-like way. And at 50 minutes it hardly overstays its welcome. It's consistently well photographed and there are memorable sequences such as the hotel of strange rooms and the falling into a mirror moment. So, mainly, the film was of interest to me as an example of creative surrealism. But as to what it means? Ah, well, your own your own there I'm afraid

I think this movie is about transgenderism. It seems to me that not only the plot but the various symbols and episodes support this. The main character, a man, moves through the various aspects of his subconscious until he gives complete life to his female self. I'm interested to know if any other transsexuals have seen this film, or if anyone else has noticed the strong elements of gender dysphoria it. I think that Cocteau was making a film about transcending gender before that process was clearly understood.

I watched "Blood Of A Poet" right after Bunuel's (and Dali's) "Un Chien Andalou" and "L'Age D'Or"; it comes a distant third. It is totally inaccessible (whereas Bunuel's films are equally bizarre but I felt like I was connecting some dots - if perhaps not in the ways that he would have wanted me to!), and pompously self-important (whereas the others are generally playful). It is also blatantly homoerotic - fixated on two strapping, muscular, bare-chested men, one white, one black (not saying that's a good or a bad thing, but it's definitely there). Some impressive photographic tricks cannot sustain even 50 minutes. I didn't understand this film, it didn't make me feel anything, and it didn't entertain me; I gave it a second try, and I liked it even less! But hey, art is subjective, maybe others will get something out of it that I missed (twice). ** out of 4.

Cocteau's first feature certainly reflects the early idealism of cinema, that "we can do it!" spirit that made early artists truly believe in the potential of cinema as a medium to trump all other arts. Thematically similar to the more famous surrealist work "Un chien Andalou," "Le sang d'un poete" is a chroma-key free-for all, with talking hands, statues that come to life, and banal bourgeoise cardgames transpiring on children's corpses. It's hard to watch at times, made even harder by what I think is a terribly distracting score (to the point where I just turned the sound off and enjoyed the film as a silent with subtitles.) However, by the end one realises Cocteau's heartfelt audacity, and the true spirit of the early cinema artists who wanted to do things with film that nobody has the cojones to try today.

A seminal work in experimentalist cinema; why does it seem like we've fallen way behind?