Testament of Orpheus (and you know you aren't the only one, if you're a certain kind of hopeless film nerd, who started to write out Dr Mabuse instead of the old Greek sad-hero-boy) is a fairly unique poetic and also philosophical and (not but and) with meditative look at how creativity works and how contending with one's own creations can be a nearly absurdist task.
If that sounds like it isn't your cup of tea, I also am not sure you would get much from this if you haven't seen the other two films in Jean Cocteau's "Orphic" trilogy, previously with Blood of a Poet (which is really its own thing and is one of the most important films one can see, as it was for me, if trying to work out language and ideas and feelings into poems), and Orpheus (it's own surreal dark delight). It's more so connected with the characters and ruminations on how humans reckon with (or don't reckon with) Mythology and the weight of these creations than delivering an A-B-C event sort of story. And if you are familiar with Cocteau, you probably wouldn't want it any other way.
It may get closer to something like Theater than Cinema once or twice, mostly in that middle part where the man and woman sort of interrogate Cocteau about his guilt in being so innocent to dream up these creations of his - it's a bit like one of those surreal bureaucratic scenes from, of all things for me to think of, the MCU Loki series, full of humorous beats where there inquisitors or investigators or paper pushers whatever you call them, only here we don't have lots of lore as much as we have a dialog about why someone like Cocteau does what he does (questions like "What is a film?" + "what is poetry?" get asked and the answers are perfect in how it addresses reality, unreality and making life out of what isn't there feel realer than what we get outside the screen).
That section may take us for a few more minutes than expected from what's a sort of surprising series of like dream sketches with the poetic impulse to express things through the abstract that can be irresistible. But it's hard to stress how unlike anything else this is, even if it's imperfect: imagine like, I don't know, if David Lynch in Twin Peaks the Return (I don't mean as Gordon Cole, I mean as Lynch) was going around for some time in the Black Lodge trying to figure out just what is up with this world he's made out of nothing but his art (maybe what we got was close enough to that in a messed up way, but I digress). Cocteau has no one he feels he has to cater to, and even what may or may not have been going on under the hood of Orpheus is just one part of this.
It's not a long feature, and that helps the structure: any longer and it would feel draggy, but just when it looks as though the film in one of the key sketches, Our Poet Director Auteur Traveler in an underground ancient ruin set (so beautifully crafted) suddenly getting seemingly killed by a spear thrown by some strange creature who may be half man half horse with fake eyeballs put over his own eyes and then is taken in a ceremonial act to a table and through the magic of cinema is healed, that there may be some drama about to unfold the film starts to wrap up. And yet I just was never thinking "wait, that's it" as it felt like a good place to finish up this sort of Film as Stream of Consciousness.
I'm not even sure if Cocteau knew for sure this would be his final film/statement/Testament if what have you, but for one open to this experiment that could have easily gone wrong (as in who wants to see the director as himself as the questioning hero, even Linklater cast someone else in Waking Life after all), it's a satisfying trip.
In closing, this film features the sort of poetic lines I'll remember forever. Like when Cocteau is waiting oh so patiently to have a meeting:
"If you wait long enough, you turn into a waiting room."
::chefs kiss, in backwards film speed::
If that sounds like it isn't your cup of tea, I also am not sure you would get much from this if you haven't seen the other two films in Jean Cocteau's "Orphic" trilogy, previously with Blood of a Poet (which is really its own thing and is one of the most important films one can see, as it was for me, if trying to work out language and ideas and feelings into poems), and Orpheus (it's own surreal dark delight). It's more so connected with the characters and ruminations on how humans reckon with (or don't reckon with) Mythology and the weight of these creations than delivering an A-B-C event sort of story. And if you are familiar with Cocteau, you probably wouldn't want it any other way.
It may get closer to something like Theater than Cinema once or twice, mostly in that middle part where the man and woman sort of interrogate Cocteau about his guilt in being so innocent to dream up these creations of his - it's a bit like one of those surreal bureaucratic scenes from, of all things for me to think of, the MCU Loki series, full of humorous beats where there inquisitors or investigators or paper pushers whatever you call them, only here we don't have lots of lore as much as we have a dialog about why someone like Cocteau does what he does (questions like "What is a film?" + "what is poetry?" get asked and the answers are perfect in how it addresses reality, unreality and making life out of what isn't there feel realer than what we get outside the screen).
That section may take us for a few more minutes than expected from what's a sort of surprising series of like dream sketches with the poetic impulse to express things through the abstract that can be irresistible. But it's hard to stress how unlike anything else this is, even if it's imperfect: imagine like, I don't know, if David Lynch in Twin Peaks the Return (I don't mean as Gordon Cole, I mean as Lynch) was going around for some time in the Black Lodge trying to figure out just what is up with this world he's made out of nothing but his art (maybe what we got was close enough to that in a messed up way, but I digress). Cocteau has no one he feels he has to cater to, and even what may or may not have been going on under the hood of Orpheus is just one part of this.
It's not a long feature, and that helps the structure: any longer and it would feel draggy, but just when it looks as though the film in one of the key sketches, Our Poet Director Auteur Traveler in an underground ancient ruin set (so beautifully crafted) suddenly getting seemingly killed by a spear thrown by some strange creature who may be half man half horse with fake eyeballs put over his own eyes and then is taken in a ceremonial act to a table and through the magic of cinema is healed, that there may be some drama about to unfold the film starts to wrap up. And yet I just was never thinking "wait, that's it" as it felt like a good place to finish up this sort of Film as Stream of Consciousness.
I'm not even sure if Cocteau knew for sure this would be his final film/statement/Testament if what have you, but for one open to this experiment that could have easily gone wrong (as in who wants to see the director as himself as the questioning hero, even Linklater cast someone else in Waking Life after all), it's a satisfying trip.
In closing, this film features the sort of poetic lines I'll remember forever. Like when Cocteau is waiting oh so patiently to have a meeting:
"If you wait long enough, you turn into a waiting room."
::chefs kiss, in backwards film speed::