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?
