Le sang d’un poète [The Blood of a Poet] (1930)

(archive.org streaming, June 2020) One of my big conceptual breakthroughs of my mid-twenties was realizing that adjectives such as “post-modern” and “avant-garde” were not necessarily tied to the present and could, in fact, designate historical works. A film such as Jean Cocteau’s Le sang d’un poète, for instance, is ninety years old and yet still as avant-garde today as it was back then. Trying to describe the plot is an exercise in futility, as it’s a surrealist collage of dreamlike imagery somewhat reminiscent of Bunuel (surrealism being big at the time). It’s not uninteresting, but it is far slower-paced than it could have been. Then again, I’m definitely more modern than postmodern in my film appreciation – and have been for decades. Something is worth noting for twenty-first century viewers: Le sang d’un poète uses some very effective special effects, as primitive as they may be.