Spine 69: Testament of Orpheus

Published: April 18, 2014, 9:29 a.m.

We hit up our last Jean Cocteau film this week to finish off his trilogy of artistic non-statements with the 1959 swan song Testament of Orpheus. Pat and I are so done with Cocteau and his insistence that nothing he does has meaning even while he forces metaphor and symbolism into every nook and cranny of his work. This one features Cocteau himself as protagonist being berated by supernatural beings for asking "Why?"