I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Jean Cocteau's "Blood of a Poet" is, on the surface, something of a free-association creation of connected vignettes that embrace surreality and art. Stylistically, it's an exploration into the two-dimensionality of screen space and how the camera tricks the eye. Cocteau uses line drawings, perpendicular angles, and makeup effects to constantly trick and bend the eye between perceptions of depth, gender, and narrative.But oh, that's not all! "Blood of a Poet", while not a dream-logic by technical considerations, is a pastiche of commentaries on, of course, society. The bourgeois are criticized for their spectatorship of each other, sexual curiosity leads to the promise of death, suicide dreams are simultaneously fulfilled and frustrated, and the public both enjoys and ignores the sadism of school-children: all in just 55 short minutes! Apparently this was the first sound film in France, and like most first sound films, the sound doesn't sync quite the way modern audiences think it should. Luckily for it, the effect is somewhat more surreal from a modern standpoint because it goes against expectations. That said, the use of sound is very cogent and experimental as well, as Cocteau includes a very flamboyant voice-over narration and ambiguous uses of noise and music to effectively change the result of the images.Finally, Cocteau is not above admitting the personal nature of the film by literally including inter-titles that explain how he cannot avoid getting trapped into the film himself. That, mixed with the film's embrace of dualities such as "this is a real documentary of unreal things" shows why this film isn't necessarily created to be understood, it's created to be experienced.--PolarisDiB

Let me preface this by saying Jean Cocteau was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Let me also say that his 1950 film ORPHEE is probably the best French movie I've ever seen. Furthermore, let me say that Surrealism is my favourite genre of cinema.Now let's get to the nasty part. The 20s and 30s--the beginning of the modern Surrealism movement--were just that: the beginning. The artistic style was in its infancy, much like a 15-year-old kid playing with her first super 8 camera. There was a lot of experimentation, a lot of self-indulgence and a lot of "wow, what does this button do?" Films made during this period (such as Sang d'un poète, l'Age d'or, etc) are best enjoyed as historical documents. Cocteau would go on to create more lucid masterpieces like ORPHEE and BELLE ET LA BETE. Buñuel would also refine his art and give us TRISATANA, etc. But the early stuff? wtf.A lot of you may be fuming at my irreverent perspective, but let me remind you that in the 1970s Buñuel himself said he wished he could burn all of his old works. I'm not sure if Cocteau took such a harsh stance, but I'm sure that even he felt that SANG was just a frolic compared to his later achievements.With Cocteau (as with Buñuel), I advise you to start from the end of their careers and then work your way back in time. I'd hate for this to be anyone's first Cocteau film, because it might end up being the last! So what can you expect in this film? First the good stuff: You'll see a lot of highly innovative techniques. In particular, you'll see Cocteau playing with magnificent illusions such as "walking on the walls" which he would perfect 20 years later (see ORPHEE). You'll see his obsession with mirrors and the symbolism they conjure (again, see ORPHEE). And finally you'll see some nice reverse-filming techniques which would become the trademark of his masterpiece (take a guess... ORPHEE). In fact, this film is almost like a reel of outtakes from ORPHEE.Aside from that, you won't get much of literary value, which is ironic because Cocteau was such a great writer. What I mean is that you won't get any plot, any coherence, any cohesiveness, or anything you can say to someone who asks you "what was the film about?" This is the kind of film you might see playing in the background of some uber hip nightclub, because it certainly has a lot of mood. But as far as sitting on the couch and watching it... I dunno. I kinda wish I had the last 50 minutes of my life back.

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

This is a truly unique masterpiece. It is almost impossible to interpret and apparently impossible to connect to any sort of reality *unless* you are one of the very few who know the *true* story of the *very* early Christian Church. Those who have read the Pistis Sophia and some of the manuscripts that have been discovered at Nag Hamadi in upper Nile in Egypt, will know what I mean. The Nag Hamadi codices were discovered in 1945 and yet this film was made in 1930. One wonders whence Jean Cocteau got his ideas. The Vicomte de Noailles, who produced and financed this film, was a pretender to the mysterious Sangraal (Sang Royal) dynasty in France, dating from the Merovingian kings. A persistent rumour connects this royal line to Mary Magdalene, who is said to have founded a church near Marseille in France after the crucifixion of Jesus.