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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)