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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cocteau - Le Fin, 30 Aug 2003
It is very hard for me to say a great deal about this movie. I am not a film buff, and as a result anything I do say will necessarily be a.impressionistic and b. highly subjective. All I can say is that this film moved me immensely, and that is why I am trying to set down a few words about it.Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) is a man whose life was so diverse it almost defies delineation. Poet, novelist, dramatist, visual artist and even a boxing promoter, he tried his hand at everything with an astonishing degree of success - perhaps in an attempt to justify his own brash evaluation of himself as "an internationally renowned genius" in the face of charges of superficiality from the Surrealist movement, with which he was once associated and which effectively rejected his art as the work of a dilettante. In my view, this was a judgement seriously flawed by a narrowing of artistic definitions born of the essential small-mindedness of many of the Surrealists, but this is neither the time or the place for this kind of discussion. Le Testament D'Orphee - The Testament of Orpheus is Jean Cocteau's last film - and making it he knew it would be. In many ways it is the successor of the earlier movie Orphee (Orpheus) - we are treated to a clip from that film at the start - but in other ways it stands alone as an artist's final take on his work and life. Cocteau stars as himself in the piece, and finds himself brought to book by his characters Death, Heurtebise and the poet Cegeste (all in Orpheus) but the trial sequences, sandwiched between episodes of time travel and exercises in relativity effectively serve as Cocteau's chance to voice his poetic philosophy. Cocteau's performance throughout is electrifying in its honesty, and on occasions has the potential to arouse great emotion. In watching, it is necessary for the viewer to suspend his ideas of reality, but this is relative. Le Testament D'Orphee is a glimpse into the mind and heart of a true poet, a modern-day Orpheus, and this review cannot do it justice. Watch the film for yourself and see what magic Monsieur Cocteau weaves for us.
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