Salvation Magazine Issue 1 - Magazine - Page 14
Jean Rollin
If you need to convince people that Rollin deserves to be seen in the
same light as other European arthouse filmmakers of the Sixties and Seventies, then this is probably the film to begin with. As a horror film, it’s really a non-starter, but as a work of art, it’s amongst the best you’ll see. Visually stunning, atmospheric and unforgettable, this is a highlight of Rollin’s
filmography and of French cinema in general. Even if his vampire films
don’t appeal, I suggest you give this a try – you won’t regret it.
After this very personal film f lopped at the French box office, Rollin
was forced to make rather more commercial films, including the first of
several hardcore sex films that he shot under pseudonyms (these include
the 1976 film Suce moi vampire, which is not really a part of his vampire
filmography). After the 1974 erotic horror movie Les Demoniaques - a solid but not especially remarkable film that has little of the style that we
might associate with the director - he made Lèvres de Sang (English: Lips
of Blood) in 1975, his final vampire movie for twenty two years. Cinema French cinema in particular - had gone through significant changes during
the first half of the 1970s and Rollin’s poetic, psychedelic studies of parallel
vampiric universes would struggle to find an audience in later years.
Lèvres de Sang is one of the few Rollin 昀椀lms that features a male lead,
with the 昀椀lm centring around Frederic (Jean-Loup Philippe), who sees a
photograph of an old
castle while attending a
cocktail party and immediately has a 昀氀ashback
to a childhood meeting
with a beautiful and mysterious young girl (Annie Belle). However, his
mother claims to have
no memory of the place
and his attempts to 昀椀nd it
are hampered by secrecy
and threats from sinister,
gun-toting
characters.
But eventually, he uncovers the truth and returns to the castle, where
scantily clad female vampires lurk.
lthough at times this feels like one of Rollin’s more personal
昀椀lms, it’s rather less e昀昀ective than much of his work – Philippe
isn’t a particularly engaging lead (it always feels as though Rollin is never as interested in his male characters as his female
ones), and while the visuals are as arresting as ever, the 昀椀lm is
rather too slow. While this 昀椀lm doesn’t feel as though it is really about the
story – it’s more to do with the sense of discovery and the romanticism of
the undead, and you suspect that there is more of Rollin’s own childhood
memories and fantasies here than in most of his work - it is rather more
conventionally plotted and structured than his other 昀椀lms of the time and
unfortunately struggles to hold the tale together in an e昀昀ective way as the
uncharismatic hero stumbles around looking confused. No amount of impressive locations (with many a familiar sight from other Rollin 昀椀lms) or
vampires in transparent gowns 昀氀itting about can liven up scene after scene
of the wooden, bored-looking hero aimlessly wandering about - of which
there are a few too many. The 昀椀lm tries to sit between the poetic fantasy of
earlier Rollin and a more conventional narrative but it all too often errs on
the side of the latter, and that’s not the director’s strength.
That said, this is still often remarkable – it’s utterly gorgeous and its
world of hyper-unreality is as pronounced as in any of Rollin’s other works.
As an existential search for the forgotten, and an otherworldly love story
to boot, it remains as far from traditional horror as you can get, something
that makes the occasional exploitation scene (a surprisingly strong female
masturbation scene; a few splashily bloody killings) seem almost jarring
in their incongruity. Rollin would learn to combine the graphic gore and
explicit sexual requirements of the new era more effectively into his narratives as time went on - Fascination and The Living Dead Girl being great
cases in point - but here these scenes feel out of place.
Rollin’s career after the mid-Seventies was a mixed bag - he made the
occasional great film and several jobbing efforts between the porn movies.
His lesser films from the time - Emmanuelle 6, Zombie Lake - are works
for hire that are best forgotten, but he was still capable of greatness - even
his hardcore work is not without merit, Le parfum de Mathilde, in par-
Awash with
remarkable, wild
visual stimuli and
vibrant colours that
positively bleed
out of the screen
A
12/Salvation
