Jeunes filles impudiques (1973)

Jeunes filles impudiques (1973) is a very shy piece of erotica."Lionel [Wallmann]," says director Jean Rollin, "obliged me to put some sex scenes in Requiem...during that dungeon sequence. I told him that I wasn't too fond of that kind of thing, and he answered: 'But you do that kind of thing very well. If we make an entire film like that, I bet it would be successful. You may not like it, but you know how to do it.'" ¶ I said, 'Okay, I'll do it, but I won't invest any of my own money to do it.' Well, he raised the money, we made the film [Jeunes filles impudiques], and he was right. The two sex films I made, this one and Tout le monde il en a deux (1974) were very successful.” (Virgins and Vampires, editied by Peter Blumenstock, Crippled Publishing, Germany: 1997, p. 148)

Jeunes filles impudiques is shy in two ways. One, the film was made during a liminal period in cinema, not just in France but elsewhere. Pornography was not yet legal in France, although it would be at the time his Les demoniaques (1973) opened in her theatres. (Virgins and Vampires, p.149) Erotic cinema, prior to the legalization of pornography, had a clear boundary. How far filmmakers were willing to push their content, in terms of explicitness, towards that boundary, varied. Cultures were changing in their attitudes towards depictions of sex, and hence, perhaps, producer Lionel Wallman’s desire to enter into the sex-film market was a direct result of these cultural changes. The second way that Jeunes filles impudiques is shy, Jean Rollin explains: “It’s strange, but it was more embarrassing for me to shoot my first softcore film, Tout le monde...; I walked off the set one day because I couldn’t direct phony lovemaking. When it became real, I had no problem at all. I really don’t know why. Maybe because in softcore films, the only person revealing his obsession is the director, because he has to call the shots while the actors simply do as they are told. In porno, both the actor and the director are in the same position. One reveals his obsession, and the actors live them out, so there is nothing to be ashamed of.” (Virgins and Vampires, p.148)

Jeunes filles impudiques is about Monica (Joëlle Coeur) and Jackie (Gilda Arancio), two friends who are making a camping trek through the countryside. The two, while wandering, come upon a maison, and from all appearances, it is empty. They decide to spend the night there. A jewel thief (Willy Braque), however, is using the maison as a hideout. When Monica discovers the jewel thief, all three spend the night together, and in the morning, Monica and Jackie leave. The jewel thief’s two associates (Marie Hélène Règne and Pierre Julien) arrive to split the stolen jewelry, and it is revealed that the loot is gone. The trio decides that either Monica or Jackie must have taken the loot, and they go off to find them.

The story of Jeunes filles impudiques plays out like an adolescent detective story. (Interestingly, in Immoral Tales in a footnote, Jacques Orth is revealed as “[t]he sex-film maker Jack Regis, who had also written the script for Rollin’s pseudonymous sex film Jeunes filles impudiques (1972) (Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies, Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, St. Martin’s Griffin Press, New York: 1995, pp.158, 176); whereas in a filmography, compiled by Mark Brusinak with Peter Blumenstock, Christian Kessler, and Lucas Balbo in European Trash Cinema Volume 2, Number 8, Nathalie Perry is the credited screenwriter. (edited by Craig Ledbetter, Kingwood, TX: 1993, p.27)) The kindest way to describe the story is to say a youthful energy and curiosity wisp the tale along; while one could also describe the film as tediously episodic and tenuously linked. Take your pick.
Jeunes filles impudiques is a curiosity in Rollin’s curious filmography, of interest for the charismatic presence of Joëlle Coeur and a look into how Rollin would broach the sex-film genre. As to the latter, the first sex scene is revelatory, as is a later scene (which would contain repeated imagery from Rollin’s other cinema.) When Coeur and Arancio arrive at the maison, they find the bedroom upstairs. At a leisurely pace, the two fold down the bed and put slipcovers over the pillows. The two get into bed after undressing and begin cuddling and kissing. The scene never really changes in its energy. Rollin then pans from an ecstatic look from Arancio to a shot near the floor (a finishing or climatic shot, rather than a transition). The scene resumes again, and the sheets are definitely off of the actresses. The flesh is much more on display, and the writhing is pronounced. Seeing the sex scene in two parts, like this, is as if the first wasn’t satisfactory and the second was perfunctory. In a humorous final shot to the scene, Coeur stands at the bedroom door while the camera sits in the hallway. Coeur’s Monica slams the door upon the camera, as if a third scene will play out but not for the viewer. In the film’s best visual sequence, a gazebo is located somewhere near the maison. The gazebo is covered with stained-glass windows of varying colors (which Rollin plays with in a voyeuristic sequence later with Marie Hélène Règne). After Braque’s jewel thief captures Monica and Jackie, Jackie is the first to be interrogated. She is located to the gazebo and bound by her wrists to the ceiling. This is clearly an exploitative scene. Little questioning is done, as Braque takes a small whip to Jackie. Arancio’s nudity is focal as is the kinky bit with the bondage and the whipping. These images do not last long. Rollin cuts to the camera’s point of view, substituting for Jackie‘s. Marie Hélène Règne circles her victim as the camera makes a circular pan. Her ultimate act of torture is trimming Jackie’s hair with scissors. However, the scene concludes with a nasty act by Règne, but it just appears as perfunctory exploitation fare.

Joëlle Coeur was a painter who was suggested to Rollin for the role of Monica by a mutual friend. (Immoral Tales, p.150). She also stars in Tout le monde and Les demoniaques. Coeur is amazingly beautiful, and it is quite evident that Rollin was completely taken with her charisma. In several scenes, it appears as if she is just doing what she wants, and Rollin has no problem with that. Her absence is felt when she is not on screen.

I am certainly glad that I was able to see Jeunes filles impudiques in an English-language version via the DVD released by Redemption. It ultimately comes off as uninspired straight sex film, although there is Rollin’s sweet sensibility and shyness carrying the film. Jeunes filles impudiques is ultimately of interest to Rollin’s fans and is definitely worth a peek.

La nuit des traquées (1980)

La nuit des traquées (1980) is a sad film. I had not seen the film in quite a while, and it was the first film that I had seen of Jean Rollin's since his death. There is an overwhelming sense of melancholy to the whole production. I pulled my Encore DVD of the film for no particular reason and gave it a spin. I watched it several times over successive nights. I suppose I wanted to see if the sadness came from me or was an emotion elicited from watching the film. "When I see this film," says Rollin, "I feel a sense of unease. As if the film contains the seed of a great film that was never actually realized." (from Virgins and Vampires, edited by Peter Blumenstock, Essays by Jean Rollin, Crippled Publishing, Germany, 1997, p.93)

Robert (Alain Duclos) is driving on a dark night during a storm in the countryside. A young woman, dressed only in her night gown, steps out on to the road. Robert stops to help the young woman. She has no memory, save her name, Elisabeth (Brigitte Lahaie), and Robert agrees to drive her to Paris for help. Robert takes Elisabeth to his flat in Paris, and the two fuck. Robert has to leave to go to the office and requests that Elisabeth wait for him. While Robert is gone, an older gentleman and his lady assistant arrive to reclaim Elisabeth and take her back to her home--the "Black Tower," a modern high-rise building located in a block of them in the outskirts of Paris. She is a patient there.

With La nuit des traquées, Rollin has been compared to David Cronenberg, especially his film Shivers (1975). The two films certainly share superficial qualities, and the comparison is not without merit. The "Black Tower" setting and the physical affliction of its residents (which also affects Elisabeth) which is causing their behavior to change are notable similarities. However, beyond these similarities, I think the comparison ends. Elizabeth's affliction is a romantic one in signature Rollin style: a disease which removes memories. The modern high-rise setting is often focal, because it is far from Rollin's previous settings, such as the ruinous castle in Requiem pour un vampire or the little getaway villa of Fascination, for example.

Natalie Perry, "in a very moving scene that gave the film its true meaning," (Virgins, p. 93) appears in the hallway of the Black Tower in front of Elisabeth and her roommate, portrayed by Catherine Greiner. Perry's character knows that she has a child and does not know where her child is. She cannot remember the sex of her child nor its name. She only has this innate connection, beyond her memory, that she has had a child and that her child is somewhere, alone. Elisabeth and Catherine are speechless and are overcome with the awkwardness of being so moved so suddenly by such emotion. Catherine tells Perry's character that her child's name is Alice, and this statement brings comfort to Perry's character. Its comfort is not lasting, as Perry's character only takes five or ten steps away, and asks again what her child's name is. Catherine tells Elisabeth that we can make memories for each other--making memories as temporary comfort for a debilitating condition that is consuming them. Grenier's character, in addition to suffering the memory loss, has also lost the ability of her fine motor skills, like undoing her buttons or unfastening her belt. "Cathy Grenier was a real actress. She dreamed about playing and worked for a long time on the scene where Brigitte feeds her with a spoon. This scene is a great moment, very moving and she is excellent in it," says Rollin. "I resisted to the bitter end facing André Samarcq [the producer] who insisted on me cutting it out at the editing." (from the supplemental booklet included in the Encore DVD set, p. 19) The scene which Rollin is describing is during a sequence where Elisabeth and Catherine are having dinner. Elisabeth watches as Catherine cannot bring the spoon of soup to her lips without spilling it. Without words, Elisabeth sits next to her friend and feeds her. Like Perry's sole scene, this sequence is especially tender and moving. So much so, after viewing, one can see why Rollin put up a fight to keep it in La nuit.

While the wonderfully-titled "Black Tower" is interesting on a visual level (just odd and out of place and disorienting), the actual location of the film perhaps hides the more interesting influence over La nuit. André Samarcq offered this production to Rollin to be filmed “within ten days or so in the La Défense district” with “complete freedom,” save the forced inclusion of several soft-core sex scenes. (Encore booklet, p.3, and Virgins, p. 93) Rollin chose to cast his friends from the x-rated movie industry, because “at the time I was rebellious,” he adds. “I was particularly bothered by the disdain that the mainstream movie people displayed towards their porno colleagues.” (Virgins, p.93) The building was an office building named “Fiat Tower,” where Rollin and crew would come in minutes after the workers left at five p.m. and film all night. (Encore booklet, p. 5) Rollin tells this fantastic story about the location:

During “La nuit des traquées”, the top floor of the tower was called the X floor. It was empty and probably served as junk space; you can guess what the crew used it for. There was a storm once and I was in the lift, looking for a location for a scene. I was aiming for the top floor. It must have been just past midnight, I was alone. The wind was howling and roaring in the lift shaft. Suddenly, I clearly felt the tower rocking. Anyone who has never found himself alone at night in the centre of a dancing tower doesn’t know what it’s like to feel scared. I learned later that the towers are erected on neoprene supports and that it’s normal that they move during a storm. But I didn’t know this at the time. So, the automatic doors open and the actors and actresses are thrashing around restlessly on the floor in front of me. I go down one floor, leave the lift of terror and climb down again through the staircase. The tower is still moving under my feet...” (Encore booklet, p. 5)

A beautiful story (it serves as an example also of how fine of a writer Rollin was). There is also a little joke in the story, as well, tied into the “X floor.”

Nonetheless, Samarcq’s demands upon Rollin show its influence in La nuit des traquées and alter its outcome. The lengthy sex scene between Lahaie and Duclos goes on way too long for most viewers. In addition, the scene is way too much for most viewers. To be totally frank, Brigitte Lahaie is too much for most viewers. Lahaie is one of the most sensuous actresses to ever grace the screen. She possesses an overwhelming and powerful sexuality. She also plays all of her roles with a true vulnerability and genuineness. Few possess these traits. However, to encounter a scene like this early in the film, many might determine the film for something it is not--a pure sex film. The subsequent sex scenes in La nuit might be borne from Rollin’s rebelliousness against Samarcq: one is a scene of violence, a rape scene shot in the same manner as a consensual sex scene; and the other is a sex scene ending in violence, performed by two ancillary characters (to be fair, ancillary characters pop up in and around Rollin’s films so often, they can hardly be called ancillary as their quantity removes their ancillary nature). The sex scenes are there, but they’re not titillating, save Lahaie and Duclos’s scene. These exploitive scenes punctuate La nuit loudly, making it unique in that respect. I’ve never valued tonal consistency (or any consistency, for that matter) in film, as I believe an artist is completely free to do as he/she wishes with the art. However, the tender scenes don’t play well with the exploitative scenes--they stand together like bullies and victims forced uncomfortably together for a school photo.

La nuit has some beautiful scenes. The opening sequence where Duclos encounters Lahaie in the rain is one of Rollin’s most beautiful in his entire filmography. Rollin writes, “I was so pleased with this beginning of the film that I was considering to open all my future films with a similar scene.” (Encore booklet, p. 6) Dominique Journet, as Véronique, is also present in this opening scene, and as in this one, she steals virtually every scene that she’s in. Véronique is arguably the most tragic character in La nuit, solely because Lahaie’s Elisabeth is focal. That is to say, since such a mystery surrounds Véronique, her emotional scenes have much more resonance. When she is alone and grasping her knees in a somber state, her emotion comes solely from her--not from some previous plot revelation or a character-building scene. Her character also has the saddest ending. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the music by Philippe Bréjean: it’s simple and haunting. He really captured the melancholy mood of the film. It has to be heard rather than described with words. La nuit des traquées is an obscure film in an obscure film maker’s filmography. There are no castles, no Castel twins, and no beach scenes. It’s a beautiful and sad film full of fragments, where perhaps, all its beauty and sadness reside.

Jean Rollin's La nuit des horloges (2007)

It's curious as to whether Jean Rollin read this passage and was inspired:

Asked about these scenes and characters who pop up in film after film, Rollin merely shrugs and says he doesn't know why they come to him. He tries to avoid them but they are always there: 'Perhaps a psychologist could tell you.' Yet, because of their place within his personal mythology, the images he uses are actually very specific and richly resonant. In each film they acquire--or reveal--new levels of meaning, rather like a pearl being built up layer by layer over a grain of sand.
The problem for many viewers is that they are always trying to work out what these images 'symbolise' and who these characters 'really' are. Actually they don't symbolise anything. In the same way that Jess Franco uses series characters--Orloff, Radek, Al Pereira--in many of his films--'old friends'--so Rollin gives us little glimpses, with each of his films, of the people and places who figure in his own universe. (from Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, St. Martin's Griffin Press, New York, 1995.)

This is speculation, but Rollin is aware of the work from where these paragraphs are quoted. Here is a still from his film Les deux orphelines vampires (1995):Those "people and places who figure in his own universe" literally populate one of Rollin's latest films, La nuit des horloges (2007). A young woman, Isabelle (Ovidie) is like one of the hypothetical viewers referenced above: her cousin, a film maker named Michel Jean, has recently died. She knows little of the man personally. The two separated when she was very young. Now a grown woman, Isabelle sits near the entrance to a railway tunnel, reading her favorite book, when a character from one of Michel Jean's films appears to her. Isabelle begins a journey to discover what kind of artist her cousin was and to discover who he was as a person. During her journey, characters from his films continue to "pop up," and tell Isabelle about the film maker.

To begin to identify and to then chronicle the myriad actors and characters who appear in La nuit des horloges would be a gross and annoying display of film geekery but, above all, wholly unnecessary. During Isabelle's journey, nearly every actor and/or character will tell her who they are and how they figure into Michel Jean's universe. Rollin, the director, cross cuts their dialogue with scenes from his previous films. Despite Rollin's cinema being more widely available and criticism of his work appearing more frequently, Jean Rollin is still a very obscure film maker. This sentiment is not lost on the director.
One of the most striking sequences occurs at a burned forest setting where Isabelle encounters a character played by Sabine Lenoël. Where is this place? asks Isabelle. The "burned forest" setting is one where the film maker always wanted to film but was unable to. The setting is striking natural scenery. Isabelle, through the grandfather clock at Michel Jean's home in Limoges, visits another location which Rollin himself identified as a place where he hoped to film in "his next film." (identified in his interview included as a supplement on the Media Blasters/Shriek Show DVD of Les deux orphelines vampires). "It's a unique wax museum," says Rollin, "from the last century and it's very curious." The Père Lachaise cemetery is also striking visually where ghosts from Michel Jean's cinema encounter Isabelle.While the meta elements are cleverly rendered into La nuit des horloges, this is by far not a post-modern attempt by Rollin to be self-referential and hip (which is seemingly annoying the majority of film viewers these days). During my first viewing, La nuit was quite disorienting: seemingly part of its design was to be strange and that was not lost on me. During a second viewing, I was struck by how melancholy the film was. A particularly affecting scene occurs with Isabelle and a genuine actor from one of Rollin's (or Michel Jean's) "lost" films. The actor, who is quite perfect in the film, is either generating true emotion felt by his lines and/or giving a very emotional performance. The emotion is very much present not only in the scene but in the overall film. This is not to say La nuit is depressing as a lot of the nostalgia and its positive energy is on display. Isabelle encounters another actress from Rollin's cinema in her bedroom at the maison in Limoges. Her performance is emotional also, but it is quite obvious her roles in Rollin's cinema were memorable and perhaps not tinged with any sadness.Ovidie is a notable figure in current French cinema and its culture, and she deserves wider discussion in subsequent entries. During my second viewing of La nuit, I was struck by how similar she is to Brigitte Lahaie in many of her memorable performances from Rollin's cinema. Like Lahaie, Ovidie is an extremely beautiful and sensuous woman who conveys a powerful sexuality but who is also able to convey a real sense of innocence and shyness simultaneously. Her performance is essential to the success of La nuit. La nuit des horloges is available on region two DVD from German label, X-Rated, and has French audio with optional German and English subtitles. It's anamorphic widescreen and has chapter stops and nine trailers from the label's other releases (including some Rollin ones). I purchased the disc from retailer, Diabolik DVD, from whom I purchase often and rate very highly.

Jean Rollin's La fiancée de Dracula (2000)

"For a long time," says Jean Rollin, "I dreamed of a close-up, an image, of a woman, naked if possible, the whiteness of her body making a nice contrast with the pebbles on the ground. And she is tied to wooden posts with the tide rising until it enveloped and covered her and I described it in many of my books. In the end, my heroine dies, caught in a trap, with the tide rising all around her. Finally, in my most recent film, La fiancée de Dracula I was able to realize this dream."
This anecdote by Rollin about his film, La fiancée de Dracula (2000), is fantastically rich. Within, there is the idea that the film maker is haunted ("for a long time") by images within his dreams. He has rendered this dream in his fiction; and whether the fiction inspired the dream or vice versa is unknown. The image was only "realized," or made true (perhaps), when captured on film. The romantic idea that a whole film could have its impetus in a dream, and the whole film could be created in order to capture this dream image is very Rollin-esque. The "pebbles on the ground" belong undeniably to one of Rollin's favorite cinematic settings, the beach at Dieppe; and his return there to film sequences as in La fiancée de Dracula is unsurprising. Also unsurprising, La fiancée de Dracula is a dream-like film.
The Dieppe sequence, which Rollin describes above, re-creates (or evokes) another sequence from his cinema. Rollin writes, "Again, the screenings were punctuated by laughter and sarcastic remarks. For me the most painful laughter came during the scene on the beach; on the pebbled shore a vampire suddenly emerges from a box. This is one of the most unusual images of my cinema, and despite the whistling and heckling it remains dazzling for me. It's there that true strangeness lies." This description is about a film that he made approximately thirty years earlier, La vampire nue (1969). Perhaps with the freedom that he found with his previous film, Les deux orphelines vampires (1995), Rollin was ready to reunite two lovers in his cinema, a vampire and the reluctantly-drawn and eager-to-surrender lover in La fiancée de Dracula.
All who come in contact with Dracula within La fiancée de Dracula succumb to madness; and the characters who populate this simple narrative, the viewer encounters them in various states of such. The Professor (Jacques Orth), also a medium, and his assistant, Eric (Denis Tallaron) are searching for the legendary Count. The Count is hidden away, seemingly in another dimension, while parallel characters who exist on earthbound planes, such as an ogress (Magalie Madison), a she-wolf (Brigitte Lahaie), and a pale, frail female vampire (Sandrine Thoquet), attempt to keep his location a secret. The key to finding Dracula is through Isabelle (Cyrille Iste) whose location is being guarded also. Isabelle is housed in a convent in Paris by a special order of nuns who are determined to keep Isabelle from uniting with Dracula. Succumbing to madness in a very severe state, the nuns' hold over Isabelle is tenuous. The Professor and Eric attempt to free Isabelle from the convent to find Dracula.
In response to the question, "What influence have the Surrealist artists (such as Dali, Magritte, Trouille) had on the way in which you structure your films," Rollin responds: "Of course, Surrealistic art had a great influence on me. But not only painting. For example in Le Frisson des Vampires, a girl gets out of a clock at the stroke of midnight, this image is a surrealistic composition. The image shot is surrealistic work. Like the collages of Max Ernst, I like to show strange motives, poetry, not gore. I prefer the fantastic, not the gore."
This response by Rollin is compelling (it is taken from a late interview, closer in time to La fiancée's production, in Issue Number Four of Ultra Violent magazine, edited and published by Scott Gabbey, Palm Bay, FL, 2002); and his choice of words, especially "strange motives" is telling. With the motif of Dracula's contact (or influence) causing madness, each character's dialogue moves into Absurdism. The absurdist dialogue against the surrealist imagery is both disorienting and fantastic. Most of the "parallel" characters within the film are examples with Madison's ogress character being a strong one. When the Professor and Eric (and the viewer) first encounter Madison's character, she is being teased at the base of a large tower in a village by the locals. Eric believes with her madness that she is unable to give any helpful information, but the Professor chides him: within her mind, despite the madness, is the key. The professor uses his medium skills to decipher and guide Madison with her words. The image of the young woman, frolicking in madness around the large tower, is another beautiful Rollin composition.
Rollin returns with his clock imagery (even more so in his subsequent La nuit des horloges (2007)); his Dieppe beach imagery; vampires and clowns. But there is also a willfulness, seemingly not apparent in his previous work (save Perdues dans New York (1989) and Les deux orphelines). La fiancée de Dracula feels also less guarded than his previous works. It is as if Rollin is filming truly what he wants regardless of audience reaction. If there is any laughter, perhaps Rollin is fueling it intentionally. The Mother Superior has a notable cigarette lighter in another standout sequence. Along with his willfulness, Rollin is very much playful and poetic with La fiancée; and it's well-worth seeing for Rollin fans.
The first Rollin quote is from an interview included on the region-one Media Blasters/Shriek Show DVD of La fiancée de Dracula (the link is for purchase and reference). The second Rollin quote from within the third paragraph is from Rollin's essay in Virgins and Vampires, Crippled Publishing, edited by Peter Blumenstock, Germany, 1997. All other sources are as quoted within.

Jean Rollin's Les deux orphelines vampires (1995)

"The story of Les Deux...involves two little blind orphans. They can only see at night because they are vampires and the film tells of their adventures. They meet strange creatures, a winged vampire lady, a wolf. There will be no nudity, but--rest assured--there will be some beautiful graveyard scenes, and it's very poetic and full of beautiful dialogue. Brigitte Lahaie will star in it, as well as Tina Aumont, who plays 'The Ghoul.' The two orphans will be played by Alexandra Pic and Isabelle Teboul, two young actresses who have never worked in films before. I found them through a newspaper ad and they are absolutely gorgeous, as you will see."

"[...][T]he vast doorway leading nowhere, a giant yawn of emptiness, which I noticed every day on the way to and from the set. I managed to set aside one hour in the work schedule so that we could use the site for the orphans to walk through."
The image of the doorway would be poetic without Rollin's anecdote informing it, but nonetheless it is a powerful image within his Les deux orphelines vampires (1995). Rollin's anecdote informs its poetic nature in such a way that it almost imbues the film with more hidden mystery and the fantastique. The image and story are poetic alone, set apart from the film: a doorway (a poetic description, as it appears more like a giant gate) with no utility whatsoever, easily circumvented from either side, without maneuvering through the middle, from a distance leading to different points of grass in the same field. At one time, it can be assumed that the doorway did have some utility, leading into an estate now gone or never built. Or perhaps its architects designed the doorway to sit in the middle of the field as its intentional purpose. For whatever reason, Rollin adjusted his entire production to film at its location for a fleeting sequence in Les deux orphelines vampires.

Now fifteen years old, Les deux orphelines vampires is one of Jean Rollin's latest feature films. My initial viewing of the film is almost as old, prior to the DVD revolution, through a dodgy, VHS screener, won perhaps in an online auction. Undeniably, the washed-out picture from umpteen duplications combined with its format drastically reduced its visuals. Needless to say, it was hard to appreciate the film, and at the time, I did not. From what I discerned, Les deux orphelines vampires was an overwhelmingly romantic film, not filled with what I would later learn as Rollin romanticism but the romanticism of the older film maker, revisiting childhood themes through nostalgia. For most viewers and critics, these aesthetics signal an artist's mortality and the end of his/her career. The film serves as a reminder of what was with the artist's work; where in Rollin's case, I saw his work as frequently surrealist montages of sex and violence and pop culture, such as vampires, clowns, pirates, and thieves.

Les deux orphelines vampires is based upon Rollin's novel of the same name, originally published in 1993 by Editions Fleuve Noir, Collection Angoisses No. 6, and was the first in a series of five books involving the titular pair, all penned by Rollin. Les deux orphelines vampires was translated into English and released as Little Orphan Vampires, translated by Pete Tombs who also wrote an introduction, Redemption Books, London, U.K., 1995. It also contains stills from within of the film. Tombs writes in his introduction, "Beginning with Le viol du vampire in 1968, French director Jean Rollin has made 15 films. Most of them have been in the horror/fantasy genre. He's often described as a maker of 'sexy vampire' movies. Yet what really makes his films interesting is not the sex, but the unique fairy tale quality that many of them have...This is the aspect of his work that surfaces most strongly in the books he has written. Little Orphan Vampires is the first of Rollin's fictions to be available in English and, although it has horrifying sequences, it's the romantic, almost whimsical, quality of the story that will surprise many readers." Subsequent to the film's completion, Rollin writes, "The film closely follows the book (and a part of the second volume), even down to the dialogues, which gives them a literary feel, a bit out of phase with the film, which I rather like."Many of Rollin's oldest artistic collaborators work both behind and in front of the camera. One of the most beautiful sequences involves actress, Tina Aumont. Craig Ledbetter, a visitor to the set, describes Aumont and wonderfully describes her scene:

A surprise visitor appears: Tina Aumont. The scandal-attracting Enfant Terrible of French cinema has lost none of her charisma from the days of Salon Kitty, although the excesses of the wild seventies have left their marks. Tina reveals herself to be the most approachable and, in spite of her long screen abstinence, very professional. "An actor without a film to work on is like a person without a family," she remarks, and it's quite obvious that she is happy about this chance for a comeback.

Her first scene is shot the next day. The location is a gigantic quarry not too far away from "Cheval Noir," whose wonderful stone and sand formations remind one of the surface of a distant planet. Cold and unique, it's a sharp contrast to the shapes and colors of the graveyard of Epigny. Here, in this desert from another dimension, Henriette and Louise meet a flesh-eating ghoul, a tragic figure played by Tina Aumont. The world after the apocalypse. The heart of every admirer of Italian Post-Doomsday movies bleeds. The cutting wind howls relentlessly, covering everyone and everything with thin white dust. At the end of the day, the work is done, and while we all try desperately not to bite on grains of sand, the comparatively quiet shooting of the castle scenes in a few days warms the heart.

(I assume that Ledbetter is the author since no author is credited in this piece but it appears in his published, edited, and designed European Trash Cinema, No. 13, Kingwood, Texas, U.S.A., exact year of publication unknown [late 1990s presumably].)

Les deux orphelines vampires is unlike any film made in 1995, similar to his previous work, yet quite a different film from Rollin. A very sensual film, the two orphan vampires have sight when night falls, and the primary color in which they see is blue; and that color permeates the images. Les deux orphelines vampires was released on DVD in 2002 by Media Blasters/Shriek Show as Two Orphan Vampires in anamorphic widescreen with both French (with English subtitles) and English language tracks. Included are brief, later-day interviews with both leads, Alexandra Pic and Isabelle Teboul, and an approximately forty-five minute interview with Rollin, discussing primarily this film but spanning to other facets of his career. The interview ends with a tour of Rollin's office where he shows some important items, including the Book of Incan art, which appears in the film.

Today, I appreciate, admire, and enjoy Les deux orphelines vampires. It is an ethereal, timeless, and very poetically-rendered film. The imagery inspires poetic description. Here are Rollin's thoughts on the completed film:

"And I had a production crew that worked without a hitch: my old crony Lionel Wallman, Sam Selsky making his last film and Jacques Michel, who had already worked on Killing Car. All this gave me the greatest freedom I ever had on a film. It is tamer, but better constructed and more controlled. One might miss the baroque craziness of Viol, Frisson, or Requiem, the wild improvisations of Bankok or Killing Car, and the strangeness of Demoniaques or La rose de fer, but at the same time I believe that Orphelines renders a very accurate picture of the cinema as I understand it, that's to say having the freedom to film what I feel like."

The final quote is from Rollin's essay on Les deux orphelines vampires included in Virgins and Vampires, Crippled Publications, Germany, 1997, edited by Peter Blumenstock, as is the second quote about the "doorway" and the final quote in the fifth paragraph. The first Rollin quote is from an interview conducted with Blumenstock in the same volume. The bibliographic information in the fifth paragraph is from Jean Rollin, Monster Bis, edited by Norbert Moutier, France, date of publication unknown. All other quotes and information are from their sources as cited within.

Jean Rollin's Lips of Blood (Levres de Sang) (1974)

Jean Rollin writes, "I think that Levres de Sang is my best story because it recalls the world of childhood memory and first love." Producer Jean-Marie Ghanassia approached Rollin with the idea of making a film together with a small budget and giving its director complete freedom. Ghanassia had previously seen Rollin's earlier work and admired what he had seen. Four weeks were allocated for the shooting of Lips of Blood (1974), but unfortunately, a week before shooting one of the film's financiers fell out of the production (Rollin cites the producer declaring bankruptcy). Rollin would have to completely cancel the film or shoot the film in three weeks. Rollin agreed to the shortened schedule, and he writes, "It was almost unthinkable: entire scenes were axed or boiled down to two or three sentences. We had a different set-up every day. It was raining. Things had to be tightened."

Frédéric (Jean-Loup Philippe) attends a soiree with his mother (Nathalie Perrey) where he spies a perfume promotional poster depicting a photograph of some ruins. Frédéric has a Proustian moment, and his memory hearkens back to himself as a twelve year old. One cold evening, lost and scared, young Frédéric seeks solace at the ancient location. Behind its barricade, Frédéric meets gorgeous young Jennifer (Annie Belle) who comforts him and wraps him in her shawl. He spends the night and slightly before dawn, Jennifer wakes the child. Frédéric leaves his toy with the young woman and tells her "I love you." He runs home, promising to come back but never returns. The photographic image and the subsequent memory awakens Frédéric to a powerful obsession to revisit the location and visit a certainty--the young woman is still there. "This is the first film where I was deliberately trying to elicit an emotion," Rollin writes, "the nostalgia of childhood."

Rollin admits Lips of Blood is uneven. The film feels hurried and most of the plot revelations come from the characters' lips. Rollin writes, "Three scenes were replaced with a long off-screen explanation by the mother. It was such a jumble that my assistant confessed that she didn't understand the film anymore." Putting the burden of the characters carrying the plot was perhaps too much for its principal actors, Philippe and Perry, as their scenes together feel like an attempt to generate emotion with their words which Rollin could produce much more powerfully with images. Subsequently, their performances aren't very good and are a jumble of emotions: Frédéric appears at times like an child in an adult body, a momma's boy, and an obsessed lover. Perry is saddled with the primary task of delivering the exposition and the plot revelations.

However, the images do survive the jumble and are aided by its genuine locations. Rollin writes, "There were breath-taking locations: the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard where Marguerite de Bourgogne was strangled; the decimated old Belleville with its empty streets and boarded-up houses; the aquarium at the Trocadero, a childhood favorite of mine. It's no longer around, but it was a magic place. I believe that the only existing record of it is in the scene from Levres De Sang." Rollin fails to also mention the beach at Dieppe (hauntingly beautiful and used several times as a location for Rollin), and the authors of Immoral Tales reveal possibly why Rollin wishes not to revisit this memory:

The final scenes take place on the beach at Dieppe, and Rollin had to fight tooth and nail with the film's backers to be allowed to shoot there.

In fact that last scene almost led to the end of his career. The producer had hired an expensive coffin...The waves were fiercer than had been expected and soon it was obvious that the empty coffin was being pulled out into deep water. When Rollin dived in to rescue it a particularly vicious wave brought the coffin crashing down on his head, knocking him unconscious. He was only saved at the last minute by his lead actor, Jean-Lou Philippe, who dived into the waves to rescue him. (I edited out of this passage a brief clause which contains spoilers.)

Frédéric's initial memory of the meeting with the young woman at the ruins is bathed in soft blue light against the night backdrop. Belle's Jennifer is beautiful, and with Rollin's imagery, she becomes memorable. The Belleville sequences are as Rollin describes them, and the introduction of the four female vampires donning shear fabric walking amongst their shadows are disorienting and intoxicating. Watching the beautiful young actresses, so full of life, playing the undead, like little children amidst the rubbled surroundings is a highlight. The Castel twins play two of the four vampires and again, Rollin falls in love with them. They have a wonderful sequence in a hospital. The Dieppe beach sequence is hampered by some awkward character compositions (perhaps from the hurried schedule and some hostility at the location?). Nonetheless, Belle captivates during this sequence and takes focus, despite the gorgeous natural scenery (which must have been extremely cold as Belle gives more than a few shivers).When the characters aren't speaking and delivering plot exposition, Lips of Blood shows Rollin's poetic ability with the camera. Rollin conceived his best story to match his superior visual talent. External problems with the production hampered his narrative, yet the imagery survives and is, again, powerful, beautiful, and surreal.

The quote from the first sentence, the parenthetical note in the fourth sentence, and the quote from the sixth sentence in the first paragraph are from Jean Rollin's essay on Lips of Blood from Virgins and Vampires, Crippled Publications, Germany, 1997, edited by Peter Blumenstock. All other objective facts from the first paragraph about the production are from Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs. The final sentence quote of the second paragraph is from Rollin's essay from Virgins and Vampires, as are all facts and quotes from the third paragraph and the first quote in the fourth paragraph. The anecdote about the Dieppe location and the block quote are from Immoral Tales.

Jean Rollin's La Vampire Nue (The Nude Vampire) (1969)

With humility, Jean Rollin speaks of the final sequence of his second film, La vampire nue (1969) (no spoilers): "Again, the screenings were punctuated by laughter and sarcastic remarks. For me the most painful laughter came during the scene on the beach; on the pebbled shore a vampire suddenly emerges from a box. This is one of the most unusual images of my cinema, and despite the whistling and heckling it remains dazzling for me. It's there that true strangeness lies." (quote taken from Jean Rollin's essay on La Vampire Nue included in Virgins and Vampires, Crippled Publications, Germany, 1997, edited by Peter Blumenstock) Rollin's second film brought him the opportunity to make a "real film," (following his feature, Le Viol du Vampire, two shorter films shot to create one full-length film) with adequate time to write a script and prepare for the production. Unfortunately, Rollin admits he managed the film's budget poorly but being able to complete photography before editing. To compound matters, considerable debt was incurred for the sophomore film maker, and a bed stay during editing for its director, having been injured after being hit by a car. Nonetheless, Rollin does have fond memories of the production, including having "succeeded in including certain images that were important to me." For me Rollin's images have always been important. Having first viewed his cinema and La vampire nue, well over twenty years ago now from Nth generation VHS dupes without a lick of knowledge of francais, his imagery was always striking. The images spoke in their own language and told traditional tales, often romantic, conveying a poetic sense that few artists would be brave enough to dare (in this Post-Modern era where irony is the norm).The authors of Immoral Tales write, "La Vampire Nue (The Nude Vampire; 1969) was based around the idea of 'mystery.' Each sequence was to heighten the mystery and lead it forward to the next sequence. Any explanation that had to be given was to be held off until the very last possible moment." Rollin begins with a silent sequence, shrouded in mystery, as presumably scientists, donning brightly-colored cloth masked hoods, draw blood from a nude female, save a cloth hood masking her identity. Iron gates are opened with the following sequence, and a young woman wearing wrapped shear fabric peeks out of her fortress to wander the streets. The streets hold several lurkers, donning elaborate masks of animals, and among the night shadows, these figures give the young woman chase. Rollin introduces a signature motif: the male chance encounter with the beautiful young woman. The young man, later revealed as Pierre (Olivier Martin), senses the young woman (Caroline Cartier) is in trouble. He attempts to flee with her only to be trapped in an alleyway, where the woman is subdued and carried away back to the fortress. Pierre escapes, and with his new obsession, he is determined to gain entry into the fortress and discover the young woman's identity. The sequential narrative of La vampire nue is at times intriguing and at times a would-be annoying contrivance, if the visuals weren't so amazingly fantastic and striking. (Rollin would wisely adopt looser and more traditional narratives for his subsequent two films (and two of his best) Requiem pour un vampire (1971) and Le frisson des vampires (1971) as canvases for his imagery.) Each sequence, instead of a puzzle piece for an escalating mystery, is rather a stanza of arresting poetic visuals. Pierre needs help and he calls his friend, Robert (Pascal Fardoulis). Robert is an artist, and preceding Pierre's phone call, Rollin introduces Robert behind his easel with brush in hand. The subject of his painting is a beautiful young nude woman. As Robert eyes his model, he observes her curves, watches the way the light reflects upon her skin, and instead of being inspired as to how to render her image, Robert becomes seduced by her beauty. Hearing no brush strokes and sensing Robert's longing looks, the model actively seduces her artist. It's an intimate scene without words and save Pierre's phone-call interruption of the subsequent lovemaking, the scene would have no narrative weight. Rollin's sequential mystery cannot compete with his imagery: all intrigue in La vampire nue comes not from some plot revelation but from an artist's imagination. Another of Rollin's signature visual motifs would appear in La vampire nue: the image of a pair of young women. As a visual motif, often Rollin's use of the pair is affecting, as it is evocative of the Gemini twins. In La vampire nue, the pair is portrayed by "the two Castel twins, serious as popes, two little hairdressers thrilled to be realizing thier Hollywood-dream, coming of age just before the shoot." (Catherine Castel and Marie-Pierre Castel; Rollin would continue to work with both or either during the seventies.) In this passage, Rollin gives some anecdotes about working with the two but also reveals a little of his obsession with pairs or twins:

I wanted them by my side every day, until the production director Jean Lavie let me know that I was "vampiring" them, sapping them of their energy and wasting them away. They looked like two little celluloid dolls dressed up for some perverse game. Jio Berck's costumes resembled sadistic machines like the ones described by the Comptesse de Segur in "On ne prend pas les mouches avec du vinaigre." One of the twins knocked herself while falling down a flight of stairs. (The scene is in the film.) She was very proud of it and is still talking about it today.

Beyond their visual power, the image of the pair conjures the idea of "together." No journey will be taken alone. The Castel twins are a highlight of La vampire nue, and Rollin seemingly goes out of his way to focus his compostions upon the two. Their roles are important to the narrative, yet Rollin is having more fun using them in his "perverse game" than as characters advancing a plot.

La vampire nue is a haunting experience of images disorienting, fantastic, and surreal. Rollin's cinema is highly influenced by some of the earlier French cinema, like Louis Feuillade (Les vampires (1915), for example) and Georges Franju (Judex (1963), for example), but with La vampire nue, Rollin would make his own mark and begin to develop some of his more personal themes. Jean Rollin would eventually become a truly unique film maker whose work I greatly admire and love. La vampire nue is a striking early work.

All quotes from Rollin and objective facts about the production are from his essay on La vampire nue from Virgins and Vampires. All other facts are taken from their sources as noted within.