The Blood of a Poet
Dir: Jean Cocteau
1932
*****
Jean Cocteau's dreamlike debut is a surreal poem and should be watched accordingly. Cocteau is one of the great pioneers of cinema although I don't think he ever intended to be nor believed he ever was. In Blood of a Poet, he really brings to life what had only before been communicated in word, and so helped the world realise cinema's full potential and invented many camera techniques still used today. Although I prefer L' Âge d'Or as a surrealist piece and Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man with a Movie Camera) is more entertaining and will always be regarded as the more inventive film of that time, it simply isn't. Only a few years separate all three films, Blood of a Poet is my least favourite but is easily, technically, the greater film. A true masterpiece and a very important film.