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The Blood of a Poet Movie Review

The Blood of a Poet is a 1932 French avant-garde fantasy film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Enrique Riveros. It’s a very intriguing experimental film.

This movie has no plot to speak of, only imaginative sequences one after another in the same vein as are all avant-garde films of this era. Although I definitely found the film pretentious at times, I still hugely respected it on artistic merits. This is an undeniable work of art, and no matter how flawed, it should be respected for sure.

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It can be divided into four sections, so let’s discuss it one by one. The first segment where the artist’s hand becomes alive is very intriguing, visually arresting and a lot of fun. But the second segment is where the film reached greatness, especially in terms of imagery. The passing through the mirror moment was unforgettable how powerful it looked. The hermaphrodite, the disembodied voice – all of these make this segment iconic.

The third segment with the snowball fight ended interestingly and darkly, but it was otherwise too short and not that memorable. The fourth segment is probably the longest one, but it does benefit from a terrific conclusion. The entire story is the most intricately crafted of the bunch while the statue coming alive provided again iconic imagery.

The Blood of a Poet is also a very homoerotic film in its approach. I am talking about the main actor being shirtless throughout. The same goes for the hermaphrodite occurrence. Those are to be expected having in mind Jean Cocteau, the director, was gay himself. His direction here is fantastic and one of his best undoubtedly. Enrique Riveros is also very memorable in the main role.

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Technically speaking, the film’s a treasure. The artistic imagery is abundantly displayed, the editing is truly inspired and the score is also great. But the black-and-white cinematography is fabulous and so polished while the sets are evocative and fantastical in feel. I only wished for better structuring and pacing. As is the case with most such segmented movies, this one is also uneven in quality, but it’s nevertheless much better than I expected it would be.

The Blood of a Poet is uneven in quality as some segments are less memorable than others, but most of the film is very intriguing in its fantastical, highly artistic, striking imagery. This avant-garde picture benefits from many evocative sets as well as truly inspired editing and cinematography.

My Rating – 4

You can get The Blood of a Poet on Amazon.