Salvation Magazine Issue 1 - Magazine - Page 15
Jean Rollin
ticular, being a stand-out work. He would return to the vampire story in
1995 with Les deux orphelines vampires (English: The Two Orphan Vampires), based on his series of novels that he wrote when ambitious film
projects fell through. The film is a fitting finale to his vampire series (his
less impressive 2002 movie La fiancée de Dracula is perhaps best seen as
a stand-alone piece) that in many ways brings all the themes of the earlier
films together for an often melancholic finale.
he film has an end-of-the-line feel in many ways - Rollin was so ill
during the shoot that he was often not even able to make it to the
shoot, handing over responsibility to assistant director Jean-Noël
Delamarre and the film, with its focus on the titular vampires to
the exclusion of pretty much everything else, seems even more
insular and fantastical than the earlier films. Rollin once again reinvents
vampire lore with the film - in his story, the two teenage orphan vampires
Henriette (Isabelle Teboul) and Louise (Alexandra Pic) are blind during
the day but regain their sight and vampiric powers in the night. The two
girls live in a fantasy world of past lives as Aztec Gods and constant reincarnation that may or may not be the truth - the film smartly fudges the
question of whether or
not they are even real
vampires or just some
odd variant that exists in
a world of mysterious and
lonely female monsters
that the pair encounter
throughout the film. The
existence of these other
night creatures - the wolf
girl, the bat woman, the
ghoul - creates an almost
fairy tale world that exists
parallel to the contemporary setting of the film, a
twilight alternative reality where the supernatural is everywhere. It’s
significant that while the
film is set in contemporary France (and, brief ly,
in New York), the modern world is once again
almost entirely removed
from the narrative as the
girls are mostly confined to an orphanage run by nuns, an old chateau
owned by the doctor who adopts them or the graveyards and railway sidings that the pair haunt (viewers will be glad to know that Rollin’s particular fixations and favoured locations have changed little in two decades).
There’s a growing sense of melancholy in the 昀椀lm as the two orphan
vampires seem doomed from the start - and even though they are bratty
predators who kill several people throughout the 昀椀lm and are full of their
own self-importance, we still feel sympathy for them. They are ultimately
victims, doomed to forever be interdependent and outside of society - their
vulnerability as the daylight comes and they are left sightless is truly tragic.
Interestingly, the 昀椀lm feels as though Rollin 昀椀nally has complete creative
freedom to make the 昀椀lm that he wants. There is one brief topless scene involving the two girls but otherwise, the eroticism that sometimes felt like a
contractual obligation is missing; equally, the gory spectacle that became a
part of his work in the 1980s is nowhere to be seen. Freed from these commercial requirements, Rollin dives deep into the strange, the poetic and the
beautiful, 昀椀nally allowing the vampires that he always saw as tragic 昀椀gures to
take centre stage. As the pair meet their fate at the end of the 昀椀lm in a quiet,
very personal way, it feels as though Rollin is 昀椀nally drawing a line under the
series - perhaps his own mortality was staring him in the face, perhaps this is
just the 昀椀nal chapter than he had long waited to tell - who can say? Whatever
the reason, Two Orphan Vampires is a 昀椀lm that transcends the sometimes
obvious budgetary limitations and provides a 昀椀tting 昀椀nale to the series.
The vampire 昀椀lms of Jean Rollin are as fresh and unique today as they
were when 昀椀rst made; perhaps even more so given the tedious conformity
and elevated pretensions of modern horror. That Rollin is still not recognised
by many genre fans is a genuine shame, though not exactly a surprise - work
this singular is never going to appeal to everyone. For those who enjoy 昀椀lms
that are almost pure cinema though, there is much to enjoy in these movies.
T
It feels as though
Rollin is finally
drawing a line
through the
series - perhaps
his own mortality
was staring him
in the face
Salvation/13
