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Testament of Orpheus Movie Review

Testament of Orpheus is a 1960 French fantasy avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Cocteau himself. It’s the weakest entry in the trilogy.

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“Mirrors reflect too much.

They pretentiously reverse images

and think they are profound“

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Yes, I have to say that this trilogy really progressed in a diminishing results fashion. The first movie is so great and artistic, the second one has its merits but is overall much inferior, and this third movie is clearly the weakest of the three as it’s so overly indulgent and pretentious.

The film is pretentious for not only being about Cocteau himself, but also he put himself in the main role, thus the entire project reeks of self-entitlement and arrogance. The movie sorely missed a memorable main character and actor in the vein of its predecessor, though I do have to commend it for its cameos, which are all quite memorable. Pablo Picasso is the biggest name here, but I also found Yul Brynner’s appearance truly unexpected and ultimately delightful.

Testament of Orpheus once again benefits from artistic, striking black-and-white cinematography and some strong sets and costumes. However, it’s never as memorable as its predecessors in terms of imagery, and the entire movie never gained its momentum as it was slow, repetitive in structure and clearly thematically lacking, though it does feature some interesting mythology in it.

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The movie is also feeling long for such a short runtime, which is a reason why I found it so overrated. It’s just okay with some good moments and technical aspects, but it was never memorable in any shape or form, at times even being too campy and annoying.

Testament of Orpheus ended the trilogy with diminishing results. It still looks great and it has some great cameos (the Yul Brynner one was particularly unexpected), but the film reeks of Jean Cocteau’s self-entitlement, it felt pretentious, lazily plotted and only sporadically intriguing.

My Rating – 3

You can get the entire Orphic Trilogy on Amazon.