Product Description

PLOT SUMMARY: A factory chimney starts to collapse. A young poet in a room sketching a series of faces is shocked when the mouth of one of the faces comes alive. The poet rubs off the mouth on to his hand. After an erotic interlude with the transplanted mouth, the young poet wipes the mouth on to a statue, which then comes to life and forces the poet to walk within a mirror in the room, which leads to the corridor of a mysterious hotel. After witnessing a number of shocking scenes in the hotel, the poet is forced to commit ritual suicide. Crowned in laurel leaves, the now resurrected poet flees the mirror, destroys the statue, and becomes a statue himself. In a courtyard, a group of schoolboys stage a snowball fight. One of the boys is killed with a snowball which has a rock hidden in its center. The poet, now a society cardsharp, plays a game of cards in which he cheats and loses. In disgrace, he again shoots himself in the head. A glittering group of celebrities watch these events, and applaud the suicide. The woman with whom he had been playing tears up the cards, leaves the courtyard, and is finally seen in an improvised coffin, residing in the state of the "mortal tedium of immortality." The factory chimney collapses entirely; the entire film has thus taken place in an instant. [IMDB - Wheeler Winston Dixon] ++++ DVD FEATURES: This officially licensed release from South Korea is 4:3 Full Screen display in Black & White, with Dolby Digital Sound in the ORIGINAL FRENCH language with optional (removable) English or Korean subtitles.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #91255 in DVD
• Published on: 2003
• Formats: Black & White, Full Screen, Import, NTSC, Subtitled
• Subtitled in: English, Korean
• Running time: 50 minutes

Customer Reviews

The poetic visual!

The lavish style of Cocteau is carved in relief with his first feature, imbued into the great surrealistic mainstream. 1930 marks not only the auspicious debut of this renowned poet, but it will be reminded as the most imaginative decade of the Century in which surrealistic proposals concerns: Bunuel would dazzle the entire world with "An Andalusia dog", "The gold's age" or "The Hurdes" and Einsenstein was in the eve of Viva Mexico and Dizga Vertov with his eye-camera proposed his experiences.

And being the first Op of a genius, there will be food for thought respect the forthcoming projects specially Orpheus and Orpheus' testament

Indispensable in any collection of every hard fan of the cinema and for all those connoisseurs of the cinema.

"A realistic documentary of unreal events!"
In film, Jean Cocteau found the perfect medium to portray his own personal mythology... Though his involvement in cinema was uneven, spasmodic and largely undertaken during later life, his fantastic images, well-meaning amateurism and continuous self-preoccupation were inspirational to the avant-garde and underground...

By 1930, when Cocteau made his first film, he was already an established poet, novelist, dramatist and artist... "Le Sang d'un poète" (The Blood of a Poet) was a characteristically romantic portrait of the artist structured as a surreal succession of images centered on a private mythology: desiring immortality, the poet, martyr to creativity, must first pass through a mirror into a deathly private dream-world... Financed, like "L'Age d'Or," by the Vicomte de Noailles, its indulgent celebration of artists in general (and, therefore, Cocteau in particular) makes it inferior to Buñuel's film, but its strong, bizarre symbolism is often alarming...

Realistic Dream Worlds
"a descent into oneself, a way of using the mechanism of the dream without sleeping, a crooked candle, often mysteriously blown out, carried about in the night of the human body." ~ Jean Cocteau

Blood of a Poet is surprisingly captivating and encourages the viewer to remain completely attentive by capturing surprise in every moment. Who would think a ball of snow would destroy a human life or that a mouth could transfer from a painting onto a hand like a sensual stigmata.

As a man struggles to comprehend his newly found "life-giving" force, he kisses a statue into life and then becomes a voyeur in a world of bizarre occurrences after splashing through a mirror, a scene that made me laugh with surprise. Here, decorative angels climb down off walls, walk across ceilings and housekeepers sigh in frustration.

The violent scenes are more like scenes from a dream and in black-and-white, the effect is rather mild and the suicide seems to be unsuccessful. The idea is more about the artistic look of the black blood than the actual death of the individuals. It is very experimental in nature and more art than death.

Recently while watching a set of music videos directed by Anton Corbijn, I did notice a direct correlation between this movie and a 1984 music video where a hand (complete with faces instead of just lips) follows a woman and people try to step through mirrors. It could have just as easily been inspired by Alice in Wonderland, but I have my sneaking suspicion "Blood of a Poet" has inspired more than a few music videos.

The beginning of this movie seems to stay in your mind for a few days as you consider the meanings and symbolism. Due to the realistic portrayals (sets are all fairly uncomplicated), this is surreal, but in a very down-to-earth way.

~The Rebecca Review