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"Fascination",
from Tuna
The career of Jean Rollin is one of the most
interesting in the history of cinema. A truly odd
man with a preference for counter-cultural
presentation, he combined his own obsessions into
a sometimes effective, sometimes dreadful, but
always unique style of filmmaking. He, in fact,
invented an entire genre, and the French call it
the Rollinade - a cheap, Gothic horror romance,
usually with lesbians and gore, expressionistic
acting styles, and artistic aspirations in the
visuals and dialogue.
In a way, you can think of him as kind of the
French Ed Wood.
Like Wood, he produced movies of such glaring
incompetence that you can only laugh when you see
them. Zombie Lake was filmed with a camera that
wasn't working properly, and it made everybody
seem to be moving in super speed. So how did he
fix it? He had all the actors perform in slow
motion to make the final product seem normal. I
use the word normal in a very liberal sense here.
Zombie Lake is far, far worse than any movie Wood
ever made. It makes Glen or Glenda look like
Raiders of the Lost Ark in comparison. Arguably,
it is worse than any movie anybody ever made,
including your Uncle Dwight in the backyard at
the Fourth of July picnic. If Thomas Edison had
lived to see it, he would have felt instant guilt
like the guys who invented the atomic bomb, and
immediately cancelled all future rights to use
his moviemaking patents. Here is a poster from
the brief Belgian run. Can't blame Rollin for
this, but it's great fun! Like Wood, Rollin
had no concept of his own incompetence. He
thought he was Shakespeare, had his actors
perform in a very unnatural rhetorical way. They
deliver poetic pretentious speeches in stentorian
tones, with broad exaggerated gestures to
emphasize cheesy lines like "Dreams and life
- it's the same, or it's not worth living".
Like Wood, he improvised with whatever
inappropriate lunatic junk was available to him.
I think I've discussed the reindeer hoods that
were used in The Nude Vampire. Reindeer, of
course, are herbiverous, and present more of a
threat to your azeleas than to your family!
"Look out, Pierre, I think he's going to
graze". Like Wood, he lived in a world of
small numbers. He and his film family once held a
mammoth celebration when they heard that one of
their films would be seen in four theatres. This
is not a world that Spielberg might be able to
relate to. Like Wood, Rollin could never be
accused of using cliched concepts to produce
tired formula films. Everything he dreamt up was
odd and original. It might be dumb or brilliant,
but you know it was his.
But there is a key difference between Rollin
and Wood. Whereas Wood grew up in a grade-b
culture, as far from the intellectual underground
as he was from the mainstream, Rollin was well
grounded in the history of literature, art,
politics, and the cinema. When he was given a few
francs and artistic freedom (the abominable
Zombie Lake wasn't his project - he was a hired
hand, and never saw the script until he was on
his way to the set!), he could turn out some
brilliant, if strange, stuff. He combined his
Gothic romanticism, for example, with 60's
new-wave surrealism. A strange combination, to be
sure.
And he had some talent. Here is his
reindeer-thing. Now the idea may be
incredibly dumb, but the execution is excellent,
given a budget of zero. The image has a poetic
and spooky presence worthy of an empty Russian
street in a Tarkovsky film, and he actually does
manage to make a reindeer seem sort of scary,
even if his shirt-sleeves are too short.
"Fascination" is his typical lesbian
vampire theme, but with plenty of plusses. It
starts with Jean Lorrain's "Un verre de
sang" as its source material, and opens with
upper class 19th century women attending a
typical period chat-fest, except that they are
drinking blood out of their expensive wine
glasses. Then we realize that their gathering
takes place .... well, I'll let you imagine. The
story has the usual Rollin elements: a female
blood cult living in an ancient Chateau,
wandering gangs of scofflaws, stylized gore, sex.
You name it. To spice up the sex scenes, he
brought in an expert, Brigitte Lahaie, a porn
actress who aspired to a straight acting career.
Not a beautiful face, but an awesome body - check
out #19 as an example.
If you are interested in Rollin, and he's
nothing if not interesting, four of his films are
now available on Region I DVD's. Mongoose has
done Requiem for a Vampire, if I remember
correctly. Still haven't seen any caps from The
Demoniacs or Lost in New York.
If you're curious for something really
strange, you might try The Demoniacs, his S&M
pirate movie. When the French Film Board reviews
a movie, they are simply supposed to assign an
age classification. In the case of Demoniacs,
they not only did that, but tacked on "and
of a complete stupidity" to the rating.
Rollin was incensed, because the board consisted
not just of bureaucrats, but also filmmakers,
many of whom were his friends and acquaintances.
He started a letter campaign to the trade papers
to defend his artistic freedom against the
oppressions of the moral majority. Of course, he
was such a loony that any attempt to defend
himself simply exposed more and more of his
lunacy, and drove him deeper and deeper into a
ghetto of underground sex and gore filmmakers.
His only way to break out was to try to make a
more artistic movie without vampires and sex, so
he filmed "The Crystal Rose" and
arranged for a premiere to showcase his new
aesthetic.
As you might expect, it was a disaster. When
the lights came up, Rollin and his film were
roundly booed, and the audience began to pelt him
with any handy objects. Cinematographie
noted that it was the worst reaction ever given
to a director, and it was all the worse because
the audience consisted solely of his fans and
friends! He never had a mainstream following, and
with this flick he had lost his only audience -
the crowd that liked his artistic and sexual
interpretations of lesbian vampires. The audience
laughed out loud throughout the premiere, and the
film was not supposed to be a comedy. That pretty
much desroyed his career for about a decade,
during which he made porn films under various
pseudonyms, and hired out for other people's
projects, like the aforementioned Zombie Lake.
He came back, though, in the eighties, and as
a novelist as well, with the same crazed
obsessions. (I don't think any of his books are
available in English). He's still around now,
working on various projects. As an example, he
put together additional footage and a final cut
for Emmanuelle 6, and turned a disaster into a
respectable film. (Tuna reviewed it last week).
Although he entered the business way back in the
fifties, he was a boy at the time, and he's only
61 now, so he may have a few more surprises left
in him.
Tuna's
thumbnails for this movie, Brigitte Lahaie Tuna's
thumbnails for this movie, other Brigitte
Lahaie (#1,
#2,
#3,
#4,
#5,
#6,
#7,
#8,
#9,
#10,
#11,
#12,
#13,
#14,
#15,
#16,
#17,
#18,
#19)
Assorted (#1,
#2,
#3,
#4,
#5,
#6,
#7,
#8,
#9,
#10,
#11,
#12,
#13)
Franca Mai (#1,
#2,
#3,
#4,
#5)
Red Shoe
Diaries - "Borders of Salt" - from
Johnny Web
This episode, while sexy and a touch poetic,
wasn't as well filmed as most in the series. The
shots of the trainyards and the train itself are
great, but the people are virtually in sepia
tones. I don't know why I'm doing these. Just for
variety, I guess, instead of the same old stuff.
Sofia Shinas (1,
2,
3)
Red Shoe
Diaries - "Girl on a Bike" - from
Johnny Web
One of the best in the series. American guy
follows a dream fantasy French girl through
Paris, fantasizing about her. She looks like an
innocent schoolgirl on her bike, and his
fantasies are romantic and sweet. Ultimately, he
can't accept the fact that she turns out to be a
sleazy dancer in a peep show in a dubious part of
town. Excellent images of her on her bike in
Paris, and also outstanding contrasting images on
her carousel horse in the sex club. This episode
was actually written and directed by Zalman King
(Most in the series are not.)
Geraldine Cotte (1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
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