O Testamento de Orfeu

Although the elements involved in the last part of the trilogy (of course it's a trilogy!) are same, the movie is brilliant in the way it deal and approaches with a poet's final years. I loved the self-reference to the earlier versions and to Jean cocteau himself. The film touches A film inside a film, a stage inside a stage, a life inside a life, a body inside a body and ofcourse a world inside a world. This is a "timeless" classic. No pun intended. This just my first viewing, I intend to see it again and again. One interesting thing (a speculation) is the BULLET from the future world. I wonder whether James cameroon got inspired from this idea to come up with "The Terminator".

Personally, I was always interested by the idea of NO TIME. This movie touches the possible cyclic nature of the time and sometime it even goes even further suggesting that -- ALL TIMES reside within ONE or NONE -- Well we're not supposed to understand it :) I loved the dig at intellectuals.

I would recommend this movie to all surrealist and anybody who has the eternal question -- WHY?! This movie is not an answer nor it asks question. Just OBEY the natural laws and see the movie :)

9/10

My summary is NOT meant to be sarcasm but an accurate description of what I saw in "Testament of Orpheus". It really does play a lot like a home movie of Cocteau's--complete with his friends making guest appearances. A few of the more notable ones are Jean Pierre Leaud, Pablo Picasso and Yul Brynner. As for the plot, it's really hard to describe and it is VERY freaky. It's sort of like a combination of a dream, the life of Cocteau, time travel and Greek mythology all rolled into one very strange film. If you try to make sense of all this, it will probably make your head explode--and it seems pretty clear that Cocteau had no intention of making the film understandable or doing a traditional narrative. Because it is essential a vanity project and an art film, I really cannot rate it. However, I think I'm very safe in saying that the film probably holds no interest to the average viewer but is something best seen by Cocteau-philes and lovers of the avant garde or surreal.

As for me and my own opinion about the film's merits, I thought the project was very repetitive--though it did have a few moments of interesting introspection by Cocteau (who plays himself through the film). Sadly, though, despite his introspection, this is yet another Cocteau film in which he over-used slow-motion and rolled the film backwards again and again to achieve his artsy effects. Essentially, you see nothing new here in the way of techniques--having seen this is "Blood of a Poet" thirty years earlier. And, it does not have any sort of lasting appeal or a coherent story like "Orpheus" or "Beauty and the Beast" (his two masterpieces). Skipable if you ask me but a mildly (very mildly) interesting piece of performance art.

Ever since I first saw Orphee decades ago I thought it one of world cinema's Greats, a work of Art and underplayed panache that literally transcends Time. That was Part 2 of Jean Cocteau's Orpheus cycle in 1949 – in 1932 Part 1 Le Sang D'un Poete set the scene in a whimsical primitive way, and Testament was the convoluted Part 3 which became his final film released in 1960. First thing – if you enjoyed Orphee I recommend not watching this immediately afterwards, it's a contrast between gold and brass. Second thing - if you don't like pretentious art films this is a special case, it's still by far the best pretentious film I've ever seen and worth watching for its self-confidence. If you do like pretentious art films then to come clean I'm one of the denser people so disparaged by the previous exalted commenter therefore I have nothing I can impart to you. I've always considered this only as Cocteau's Testament – it's all about him and his thoughts of posterity at 70.

Cocteau as film maker and poet stands between two worlds accused of being guilty of Innocence and is condemned to Life while his last film makes itself around him. There's a lot more to it, involving going backwards forwards and sideways in Time and Timelessness with or without trick photography, all of the cast large or small spouting cod-heavy aphorisms with gossamer realism or relevance. It gave him a chance to revisit the subject, and as he admitted at the end of the film to give some of his old friends (Casares, Perier, Dermithe etc) a job in the revisiting – after all, he was by now to use his own words from Orphee now "rotten with success" and could get away with murder. He died twice in here – even the Motorcyclists Of Death only wanted his autograph - and he lived and died to tell the tale. I can see where Banksy got his inspiration for his recent Mobile Phone Lovers from. I take away the image of Cegeste's image being saved from backward burning only for the image to be torn to pieces, that cerebral scene was worth the eighty minutes! The twenty minute wordy trial scene gets tiresome as you gradually realise its pointlessness apart from the padding out of the temporal running time. But there's plenty of tremendous imagery and heavy moralising throughout; Cocteau was incredibly talented, big on surrealism the occult and symbolism of all kinds, all more or less intellectual dead ends and as with many other big thinkers full of mumbo jumbo before and since he agonised over the merits and demerits of the Catholic Church, another dead end. Whereas with Orphee he made a film that could be enjoyed over the generations by all kinds of people with various levels of brainpower he created here a film so obscure it only plays like an in-joke raspberry to the world of the end of his life.

So there you are – I do quite like Le Testament D'Orphee so hopefully Cocteau won't be sad wherever he is, it's just I'm not a poet and have an old nose for Art and Artifice. No matter how unique or interesting this film is to me or even for that matter to those of a higher intellect, he was simply having a laugh.

There are nice ideas in this final film by Cocteau. It's a pity he made it in 1959: there had already been Bunuel's l'Age d'or (1930) and Un chien andalou (1929), Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) and The Seventh Seal (1957) that are all brilliant. Not to mention Cocteau's own Sang d'un poete (1930!), in which the relatively simple technical ideas of Testament d'Orphee were already worked out and even better too. Cocteau utilizes terribly slow motion and awkward backwards play. Where Orpheus was ambitious, this is mere pretentious. The acting is mediocre, despite the interesting cast (Cocteau, Brynner, Picasso). Testament is less thought provoking and less surprising than what I hoped for, but nevertheless worth a try. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood for conversations about eloquence and poetry at the time. Still it is at least as interesting as Orson Welles' F for Fake (1975) in which Cocteau also appeared so prominently.

7/10

Jean Cocteau's final filmic flight of fantasy is very special indeed.

Adopting the guise of a poet 'unstuck in time', Cocteau ranges over his life in the world of poetry. It's a phantasmorgorical whirl of imagery, with plenty of humour, pathos and an enormous, transcendent sense of wonder. There's also a trial sequence where the characters from his earlier success 'Orphee' try him for bringing them into existence !

Some of Cocteau famous friends feature in brief cameos. Look out for Picasso and Bardot.

You don't have to be a Cocteau fan to enjoy this movie. All you need is an interest in the nature of creativity and an enjoyment of poetry, symbolic art, and the wonderfully cinematic music of Georges Auric, who scored all Cocteau's major films.