In a poet’s room, an armless statue abruptly comes to life. It invites the poet to step through a mirror and to discover another world. Strange places and characters present themselves to him. The poet tears himself away from these twisted fascinations and returns, with some difficulty, to his room.

Poet-playwright-painter-filmmaker-novelist Jean Cocteau irrevocably changed the expressive potential of cinema with his first feature, The Blood of a Poet. Visually transcendent and playful, the film courageously introduced all of the dark romantic surrealism of Cocteau’s art to the moving image.