Cocteau claimed that this, his last film, was a look back over his life or rather 'the poet's' life. Lucky for us he did for otherwise this collection of strung-together scenes would make little sense, (even with Cocteau's explanation it still makes little sense). "Le Testament d'Orphee" opens with a scene from his 1950 masterpiece "Orphee" so you might be forgiven for thinking that what follows will be an analysis of that film. Hardly, as Cocteau 'playing' himself goes off in search of whatever takes his fancy at this very late stage in his life, (he was to die three years later).
As a film it's an uneasy mix of pure cinema and bad theatre but as surrealism it's not unimpressive and is suitably vague and he does manage to get a lot of French stars on screen as if they were queuing up to appear in a Cocteau film in the mistaken belief that if it's Cocteau it's going to be a masterpiece. The problem is that Cocteau is a bad actor, even when playing himself, and he's hardly ever off the screen. Of course, there are things here that are extraordinary, (and it's almost an obscene pleasure to see Maria Casares), but much, too, that is terrible and nothing that might suggest the man himself was a genius.
As a film it's an uneasy mix of pure cinema and bad theatre but as surrealism it's not unimpressive and is suitably vague and he does manage to get a lot of French stars on screen as if they were queuing up to appear in a Cocteau film in the mistaken belief that if it's Cocteau it's going to be a masterpiece. The problem is that Cocteau is a bad actor, even when playing himself, and he's hardly ever off the screen. Of course, there are things here that are extraordinary, (and it's almost an obscene pleasure to see Maria Casares), but much, too, that is terrible and nothing that might suggest the man himself was a genius.