p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hey, hey, jay! I don’t know, maybe the vampire/lesbian fantasy complicates the power dynamic in hetero guys’ fantasies and makes the dominant female-centric lust less self-excoriating? Or something? I haven’t seem Takashi Miike’s ‘Teorema’ reworking, thanks. Everyone, You want to see how Takashi Miike reworked Pasolini’s ‘Teorama’? Thanks to jay, you can. Here. No, makes sense, re: AI vs. dreams’ real world incompatibility. I’m glad to hear that your concussion only left a little bit of a short term superficial mess. My weekend happened without too many highs or lows, and yours? ** Steeqhen, Oh, okay that makes sense. The logistics. As I think you know, my dreams dissipate upon my awakening, so dreaming is mostly just exotica to me. Luck re: the job. Well, and especially re: that contest. Not bad. Not bad at all. ** Connie, Hi! Your friend’s theory makes sense, yeah, although I can’t parse why, or at least not without a degree of thought that the p.s. construction makes less than doable. No, I haven’t seen Stephanie Rothman’s ‘The Velvet Vampire’, but I’ll try to seek it out. Oh, that dropbox thing is your set? Thank you! Fascinating, or I mean it obviously will be to imbibe. Sounds intensely interesting. Exciting work you’re doing. Very cool. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Iron Rose’ is his peak? That’s interesting. Okay, I get that. We had a TV channel called Bravo in the States, but it sure wasn’t like yours. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, there are six people involved in the biweekly Zoom club, and we take turns choosing and assigning a film and a text for us to discuss. Member Jack Skelley chose ‘Teorema’. I chose the text this time, a piece of Jean Jacques Schuhl’s novel ‘Ingrid Caven’. No criteria. Anything goes. Just something that seems like it’ll provoke interesting blabla. I hope love isn’t lactose intolerant because that would so suck aka cheese! Err, was love’s suspicion wrong, one hopes? Love legally changing his name to Wishing Well, G. ** Alice, Hey. I’ve been okay, you? Oh, wait you’re going to tell me, cool. I played guitar in my teens. I was in two bands. But I couldn’t seem to make myself get better at guitar playing so I quit. And I played the recorder briefly. I was in a recorder consort that performed at a Renaissance Festival. That wasn’t interesting whatsoever. Have I seen ‘All About Lily Chou Chou’? I can’t remember, so maybe not. I know ‘Vengeance is Mine’ assuming it’s the same film. Zac’s and my films heavily linger on faces, so yes. Our characters are always quite introverted, and doing that is key to making our films work. Wishing you a fruitful week in return. ** Misanthrope, I was famous for my carrot cake at a certain point years ago. The trick is to not make a carrot cake too sweet because they’re usually way too sweet. Nice birthday. I’ve never had a Funko pop. I guess they must sell them over here. Massive luck on the 9th, and of course more so on the 18th. I’m sure it’ll just be a fly through. Get yourself rewarded. ** Charalampos, Cool. And thanks. I wish I could transport our weirdly spring-like cool weather down there. Well, not all of it, but a helpful portion. Luck with the boy troubles. Hi from Paris and me trying to write something I promised to write and without terribleness. ** julian, Hi. Oh, maybe the early vampire movies are a decent entrance. They’re fun, and they’ll let you know how interested you are in his style. Wilson contributed to her ARTPOP thing, right, makes sense. I usually try to start doing the p.s. between 8:30 and 9 am, but I often end up starting just after 9 am. It usually takes me anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours+ to finish the p.s. depending on the number and complexity of the comments. ** Steve, MP3 player, whoa. ‘The Blue Mask’ was a pretty good one. I sort of tend to think ‘The Bells’ was maybe the last really good one. Happy to have provided the links. ** Carsten, Very long story as short as possible, Zac and I crazily decided we wanted to to go Antarctica. To get there you take a ship with a bunch of mostly rich people from Ushuaia, Argentina. When you get there you sail along one part of Antarctica for ten days. You sleep on the ship, and every day they take you to the shore in little boats and you can walk or hike around in a supervised way. There’s nothing there but snow, ice and penguins. No plants, no insects, nothing. You’ve never experienced such silence. One night they let you sleep overnight in tents on the surface. Sounds kind of boring, but I can assure you that being in Antarctica was completely mind blowing. The 300 euro/year healthcare I have is pretty good but not completely thorough. I think if I was hospitalised I’d have to pay something but it would be shockingly little. I haven’t yet been ill or anything since I got it, so it’s still a mystery to me. ** Bill, I think you probably have the overall deal. Shipley’s most recent book ‘Stab Frenzy’ is quite good too. ** Måns BT, Måns!!! Hey, buddy! Haha, sounds like you had a classic Berlin experience, and your love of it is both utterly confusing to me and wholly admirable. Basmah, whoop! Good going. Oh, shit, you remind me that I extremely need to write to the film place in Stockholm. Shit, I’ve been so busy with film. I hope they still want to screen the film. I’ll write to them. Oh, fuck, I hope I didn’t blow that golden opportunity. We have some festivals and screenings coming up that I’m just about to get the green light to announce. That sounds most lovely and promising with the girl. I guess keep doing what you’re doing. Congrats so far, pal. That’s so nice. Laika’s idea was that ‘God Jr.’ would be their first combo animation and live action film. They had the option for almost ten years, and they were planing it and giving me updates, but they never quite figured out how to do that combo to their satisfaction, and so eventually they begged off. It was cool, it was sad. So very nice to see you!!! ** Hugo, I’m so over zombies, Jesus. ‘Martin’ is really good, I agree. I hope you’re not sick. Wood being knocked. That is a nice opening. Your friend is quite talented. Does he write outside of his diary? ** HaRpEr //, Hi. When you say comfortable, do you mean compromised? To me I think being comfortable means I can do my work more concentratedly and well. I’m not a huge Pasolini fan, much to the shock of most of my film buff friends. His films just don’t reach me interestingly. ‘Teorema’ interested me in that it seemed like Pasolini doing Bunuel. I liked the early part of it when it was playing around visually. I was okay with the Terrence Stamp phase, but the aftermath seemed really half-baked. His films seem kind of half-baked me to a lot. I recognise that the problem is mine. I think if I had to pick a film of his that I think is the most okay it would maybe be ‘Porcile’, but I think Pierre Clementi’s involvement is probably what tips the balance. ** lotuseatermachine, Hi machine with interesting eating habits! Maybe start with the early vampire ones. I used to take a ton of LSD when I was young and loved it, but marijuana always made me paranoid and I avoided it. Strange. Probably a good idea to stay away from drugs. Their invasions are definitely not always helpful or worth the attacking aspect. ‘The Ruins’ is kind of fun. You live in Australia? Why did I not realise that. I’ve only been to Melbourne, which reminded me a lot of LA, and Tazmania. Seemed very interesting, but, gosh, the plane trip to get there and jet lag, whoa. ** horatio, Happy to have a facilitated a fun viewing experience. Oh, great, about Athens International Film and Video Festival! I’ll submit our film to them this very day. Cool, exciting and soon to be nerve-wracking. Thanks about your prof. My weekend was semi-relaxing, which is realistically as good as it gets, I think? I hope your week relaxes you, but not too much, of course. ** Right. I don’t generally like to focus the blog on my own work, but … For a few years I was concentrated on making novels using animated gifs, as some of you may know. I used the blog’s behind-the-scenes space to construct them, and sometimes I shared parts here when I felt okay with them. So I’m restoring one of those parts today for whatever reason. The gif fiction up above ended up being a chapter in my gif novel ‘Zac’s Freight Elevator’, which I think is probably the best of the five gif novels I made. Anyway, that’s what’s going on here today. See you tomorrow.
‘French director Jean Rollin had a career-long fixation on deeply sexual, hideously gory vampire films, suffused with delicate, dreamy poetry that claimed him a niche audience of committed fans. His pictures are an odd, uncommercial blend of pornography and Gothic horror, entrancing and addictive to the select few. A listing of Rollin’s film titles hints at the strange images on display in his movies–but it only hints. Within the films themselves, a bounty of exotic, sadistic perversities awaits: lovers are sealed in a coffin that drifts out to sea, a marriage ceremony weds a pair of vampires, a female vampire frantically slices open her arm and drinks her own blood, a coven of vampires chain women victims to the walls of a dungeon, a crew of pirates tortures the survivors of a shipwreck, upper-class women convene at a chateau for ritualistic blood drinking, and that’s just for starters.
‘The low-budget independent film industry in 1970s France was a sex industry. The liberalisation of censorship gradually opened up to hard-core porn, which soon dominated the slates of exploitation producers. Rollin, personally obsessed with his own visions of erotic vampires, cleaved an idiosyncratic path. He did his share of straight sex pictures, and often cast porn stars in his horror epics (since they were used to performing in the nude, whatever their thespian abilities), but he spent most of his producers’ money on deeply personal films with little regard for their commercial prospects.
‘From 1968’s Le Viol du vampire (Rape of the Vampire) onwards to the present day, Rollin has exercised what Tim Lucas calls “one of the purest imaginations ever consecrated to the horror genre.” Rollin improvised one picture in its entirety—Requiem pour un vampire (Requiem for a Vampire, 1972)—which was the only one of his films to get a US theatrical release, thanks to sexploitation master Harry Novak who distributed it as Caged Virgins. And Rollin’s Les Raisins de la Mort (Grapes of Death, 1978) was the first notable “gore” film made in France.
‘But of his oeuvre, Fascination (1979) arguably ranks as Rollin’s finest work. An excellent-and of course heavily sexual-psychological thriller, Fascination presents a group of rich socialites who indulge in the drinking of bull blood as a cure for anemia—only to develop an insatiable taboo thirst for the human stuff. They sate this thirst in elaborate ritual gatherings to which they “invite” male victims. Thoughtful, sensual and lushly photographed, Fascination is a unique production, and undoubtedly the most accomplished work ever made with a porn-star cast.
‘Rollin’s movies combine pulp imagery with the plot mechanics of serials. You’ll find American models combined with the classic French serial tradition of Louis Feuillade, as epitomized by Les Vampires and Fantomas. In contrast to his enticingly hyperactive subject matter, Rollin’s approaches storytelling with a cool, dispassionate eye. Whereas directors such as Jose Larraz (Vampyres) and Jess Franco (Succubus) indulged in intensely emotional subject matter and images, Rollin preferred languid, morbid contemplation. So while his subject matter involved comic book aesthetics, Rollin filtered his storytelling through a high art sensibility.
‘Inspired to be a director by a childhood screening of Abel Gance’s Capitaine Fracasse (1942), Rollin also cites Georges Franju’s Judex (1963) as a major influence; and by extension, a line of influence can be traced all the way back to Louis Feuillade himself. Rollin also took a great deal from his mentor, the surrealist Ado Kyrou. Admits Rollin, however, “You know, there isn’t really a French tradition of fantastic cinema. I don’t think it can be said that I am a representative of French fantastic culture per se.”‘ — collaged from various sources
Vampires burst from grandfather clocks, lovers are speared on the same stake—you are noted for your imagery, not your narratives—is this a fair comment?
The answer is this. The imagery in my films is certainly more important than the story itself. But the stories are done to provoke such images. In a certain way, the stories are “mad love” stories and the images are surrealist visions. The mixture of both makes my films.
You have been roundly condemned by critics for your excursions into pornographic/hardcore films—what is your response to such criticism?
I shoot X-[rated] films to have sufficient money to be able to live. I don’t like the films but to make them can be amusing. I remember that period with pleasure. I liked the people I was working with, it was always one- or two-day shoots, very funny, a good friendly atmosphere. But no interesting films, that’s all I can say.
What influence did the likes of Georges Franju and Luis Buñuel have on your career?
It’s the same kind. Buñuel shot visions like Trouille did paintings, or Magritte. We can take some images off the film, those images speak for themselves. They are independent of the story, they are the voice of Buñuel himself. So, in a film so banal in appearance like Susana (1950) or even Él (This Strange Passion, 1952), everything is shown by the vision of the artist. Personally, I am jealous of an extraordinary vision I saw in one of Buñuel’s last French films. I don’t remember which one but: a man closes a coffin, and some gold hairs from the dead girl inside are visible.
Such imagery leaves me full of exaltation. There are many such imags in Buñuel films. Franju is the author of the greatest film of the genre, Les Yeux sans visage (1959). Perfection of the script, of the actors, of the light, of everything. I was haunted during many, many years by the end, Edith Scob walking in the park with her face covered by the white mask, and the white birds and that music… I have tried to find that atmosphere of dream, poetry and madness in many of my films.
Same reflections about Judex (1963). It’s a serial, like a serial. For me, where the cinema is near the surrealist poetry, near the primitive mind of childhood, it is the serial. My remembrance as a child is of the serials I saw after school every Wednesday—Zorro Fighting Legion, Mysterious Docteur Satan, G-Men Versus the Black Dragon, etc. I think I personally have shot two serials: Le Viol du vampire and Les Trottoirs de Bangkok (Sidewalks of Bangkok, 1984). Here a critic said, “Rollin has done with Bangkok the same film as his first one, Le Viol, 25 years after.” And it’s true! Bangkok is a kind of “Fu-Manchu” and the film was improvised to a great degree like Le Viol. When I was shooting it, I was in the same mind that I was for Le Viol. I was 20 years old again!
Your first fantasy film Le Viol du vampire was considered daring for the time and was released during a turbulent period in French history—in what way did this film and the critical reaction to it shape your future career?
Le Viol was a terrible scandal here in Paris. People were really mad when they saw it. In Pigalle, they threw things at the screen. The principal reason was that nobody could understand the story. But there is a story, I swear it! Now, after such a long time, I think the principal reason is that the film was supposed to be a vampire story. The audience knew only Hammer’s vampires and my film disturbed their classical idea of what such a film had to be. And outside it was the revolution [1968], so people were able to exteriorise themselves. The scandal was a terrible surprise for me. I didn’t know that I had made such a “bizarre” picture.
For me, it was so simple! In all the country, throughout France, the film was a scandal. In my area, a little village, the priest said to his audience in church that they must not see the film on release at their local cinema… I was the devil. And even the fans of such films were disillusioned and the critics wrote horrors about me. A great newspaper, Le Figaro, wrote: “this film is certainly made by a group of drunk people, probably medical students. It’s a joke.” I thought that my career was finished. But many people came to see that scandalous film, and the producers asked me to do a second one. La Vampire nue was not so delirious.
____________________ 16 of Jean Rollin’s 49 films
________________ The Rape of the Vampire (1968) ‘As potentially problematic titles go, The Rape of the Vampire (an accurate translation of the French original, Le viol du vampire), the debut feature from French genre director Jean Rollin, is something of a peach. Quite aside from its teasingly ambiguous nature – is the vampire in question the rapist or the victim of rape, or perhaps even both? – the use of the word ‘rape’ in the title of a fantasy horror film would absolutely be frowned upon today, and with good reason. We have, I would hope, come a long way since the “I like rape” gag in Blazing Saddles and the “Been out raping, lad?” exchange in Yellowbeard, and the sensitivity with which the subject is now rightly treated could potentially create its own problems for a film that is much more than this sensationalist sounding title might suggest.’— Slarek
________________ The Nude Vampire (1970) ‘One night on a deserted street, Pierre (Olivier Martin of Rollin’s LA VIOL DU VAMPIRE) runs into a scantily clad mute young woman (Caroline Cartier) who is being pursued by men in tuxedos and bizarre animal masks who kidnap her and take her back to a townhouse that belongs to Pierre’s father, industrialist Georges Radamante (Maurice Lemaître) who warns Pierre to mind his own business. Pierre sneaks into the townhouse for one of his father’s parties and witnesses a woman playing Russian Roulette shoot herself and the mute young woman drinks her blood. Pierre delves deeper into the mystery and has to fight off his own father’s thugs while Georges and his associates squirrel the young woman off to an isolated country house. Pierre then meets the Grandmaster (Michel Delahaye) of a large group of bizarre looking and acting hippies – of whom the young woman is one of their number – who lay siege to the country house with his help to rescue the girl who it turns out has an unusual connection to Pierre.’— dvdbeaver
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___________________ Requiem for a Vampire (1971) ‘Jean Rollin has remarked that he wrote the script for Requiem for a Vampire in three days. He started with images- two clowns being chased, a woman playing a piano in a field, and the went from there. His approach to writing the script was similar to that of the surrealists in their methods of automatic writing; he just jumped from image to image without censoring his subconscious. Even while shooting, he refused to change anything from his original script, it had come out of his head that way so he insisted on keeping it that way. Somewhat surprisingly, it turned out fantastic (and not only in the fantastique way). The plot follows two beautiful young girls as they escape from something unknown, and fall into the clutches of a renegade group of individuals protecting the last vampire. There is little to no dialogue for the first hour of the film, another factor that Rollin was very proud of. It’s very fast paced, and never really drags, all the while remaining beautiful, mysterious, and a tad melancholic.’— Esotika Erotica Psychotica
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____________ The Iron Rose (1973) ‘A bit of a departure from his previous films, Jean Rollin’s THE IRON ROSE has no vampires, zombies or lesbians. Instead its minimalist plot sounds more like the outline for an independent film from a young suburbanite, who has borrowed the family camcorder, grabbed a group of buddies and ran off to the local cemetery to shoot. Featuring two main actors, one set, little dialogue, bad poetry and a random clown, this film should not work. Yet somehow, through the lens of Mr. Rollin, it does. Eerie and thick with gothic atmosphere, THE IRON ROSE may be short on dialogue but it is long on mood. The film’s main set piece, a cemetery located near Amiens, France is a gothic dream of seemingly infinite rows of tombstones, crosses and cherub statues. From the first frame, the film is awash with an unnatural fog and overall damp feeling, making it very much a mood piece. Jean Rollin effectively captures the feeling of being secluded and unfamiliar of one’s surroundings; as graves and crypts seem to run on endlessly, with the entire facility overgrown with fallen decaying leaves and winding moss. The film’s score is used as modestly as the dialogue, but is more than effective at raising a hair or two.’— dvddrive-in
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_____________ The Demoniacs (1974) ‘On some unspecified shore, a band of four “wreckers” lure ships to the rocks and rob the empty carcasses once they wreck. The film begins with an introduction of the four main dramatis personae, the Captain (John Rico), his two henchmen Le Bosco and Paul, and the gorgeous Tina (Joëlle Cœur). The narrative misleadingly characterizes them setting up the stage for nonexistent conflicts. Very funny. One night, as they pillage the wreckage of the latest unfortunate ship, the four stumble across two survivors, Demoniac #1 (Lieva Lone) and Demoniac #2 (Patricia Hermenier). The wreckers quickly wreck them also, and ineptly try to murder them. There’s so much gratuitous nudity by Tina that one cannot concentrate on the supposedly wicked goings on. Rollin followers have already seen this film. For the indiscriminating fan, it may be a little too much, although the rampant full frontal nudity and the delicious Tina will certainly keep men and lesbians glued to their seats. There isn’t much to recommend otherwise. I happen to like Rollin, and this is one of his better films. You have been warned. Unrated. Fun for the whole family.’ — gotterdammerung.org
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_____________ Lips of Blood (1975) ‘Elegantly roaming from castle ruins to the streets of Paris, the wanton vampires in Jean Rollin’s bloodsucking classic are ethereal visions of eros.’— MUBI
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_________________ The Grapes of Death (1978) ‘From the get go, it’s a bit of a leap to really call the zombies in The Grapes of Death zombies. If anything, they’re more reminiscent of the infected populace from George Romero’s The Crazies (only with the ability to recognize what they are doing and whatnot) and the pseudo-zombies from Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. The film does hold a social conscience not unlike Romero’s work though, especially when it comes to ecological and environmental issues. The “dead” here are not the real villains. Sure, they kill, torture and maim with zeal, but the true villain in Grapes is mankind itself, in particular it’s ignorance and arrogance towards the environment. Apart from that, this has many of the hallmarks of that has made Rollin’s work so revered among horror fans and students of the genre. It’s got the Gothic atmosphere (the use of a very creepy blind girl, the countryside is used effectively as a place were death lives) and the sadistic violence (including nasty moments such as an impalement with a pitchfork and a nasty beheading), but it lacks in the erotic beauty of his other works. That’s just fine though, as it’s still one of his best works, as well as one of his more straightforward films.’ — Talk of Horrors
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_____________ Disco Sex (1978) ‘A disco band shows up at a studio to make a new album, but they are badly mobbed by a bunch of female groupies. A big orgy breaks out that postpones the recording session.’— Letterboxd
__________ Fascination (1979) ‘Jean Rollin’s 1979 opus, Fascination, is an interesting and bewitching take on the idea of craving blood that is coupled with the director’s superior visual style and erotic nature. It is an intriguing tale set in 1905 that begins with mesmerizing visuals that captivate and draw the viewer in, before the story unfolds. At the start, we are treated to the lovely sight of an antique phonograph set on a bridged pathway over a body of water where two women in white (Brigitte Lahaie and Franca Mai) are enjoying a ballroom style dance. Elsewhere on a different day in a bloody butcher house, high society women in fancy dress stand around and participate in the “latest fashion” of drinking ox blood as a therapy for anemia, which I felt to be an interesting take on vampirism, and also feels like a mockery of sorts for wine tasting clubs. The beautiful but grim sight of these ladies drinking blood from a wine glass standing in a pool of blood is a darkly poetic visual done in a way only Rollin could, and is an image that will stick with you forever.’— At the Mansion of Madness
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________________ Night of the Hunted (1980) ‘Despite working with a miniscule budget, Rollin captures some haunting images in this film. Never has Paris looked as desolate as in this movie. One of Rollin’s trademarks has always been his own fascination with architecture and, as a result, the cold skyscraper where Lahaie is held prisoner almost becomes a character itself. I’ve always considered Jean Rollin to be horror cinema’s equivalent to Jean-Luc Godard and, with its images of a sterile city run by passionless autocrats, Night of the Hunted brings to mind Godard’s Alphaville. The film’s most haunting image comes at the end and it is this image that brings tears to my eyes every time. Whatever flaws the film may have, Night of the Hunted has one of the best final shots in the history of cinema. Even if everything preceeding it had been worthless, this movie would be worth sitting through just for the stark beauty of the final shot. Night of the Hunted ends on a note that manages to be darkly sad and inspiringly romantic at the same time. It’s an ending that makes Night of the Hunted one of the most romantic films of all time.’— Through the Shattered Lens
______________ Zombie Lake (1980) ‘Surely a film about Nazi zombies couldn’t fail in their grubby hands? Well Zombie Lake not only fails but fails like never before. In all my years of watching horror, I can’t recall a film which borders on the incompetent as much as Zombie Lake. Even the extremely gratuitous and frequent naked women are wasted in this appalling mess which comes off like some man’s perverted pet project.’— Andrew Smith
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_________________ The Living Dead Girl (1982) ‘The Living Dead Girl leaves behind all of the signature trademarks director Jean Rollin has become known for. Besides the bright daytime settings common to many of his films, Rollin injects several surreal dreamlike qualities to his imagery and characters. He also mixes sex and violence in even measures, but while there is plenty of gore, it is offset by the beauty and innocence of the undead Catherine. Catherine is an extremely sad and tragic character that often reflects Shakespeare’s Ophelia through visual references and tone. She is by no means the typical cinematic zombie popularized by Romero or Fulci, nor is she in any way a reincarnation of the familiar Gothic vampires from the Universal or Hammer productions. She is quite plainly a girl brought back from the dead by no will of her own that only wishes to return to her grave after realizing that she must drink blood to survive. She has no purpose or meaning after being brought back, and she is forced to give into to her baser instincts. Catherine is assisted by her childhood friend, who seduces young women back to their secluded mansion in an attempt to save her deathly companion. This also drives the lesbian subtext common to many other Rollin films. Much of the dialog reads like poetry, with beautiful exchanges about life and death that make up for the lack of realism in rich romantic fantasy. Blanchard handles the role very well, with a dull, lifeless, and penetrating stare and angelic white robes that give her an ethereal appearance. LIVING DEAD GIRL is not your average undead Horror film by any means whatsoever, and while the slower pace and strange characters are sure to turn off many fans, it is these same unique elements that others will enjoy most.’ — Carl Mane
______________________ The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984) ‘Rollin combines kinky sex, Fu Manchu, cliffhanger adventure and sloppy martial-arts action in this pulp-inspired spies, sex and sadism thriller. Diminutive Asian actress Yoko stars as the innocent caught in the web of warring spies and a secret society of deadly female agents, suffering at their hands in every scene, like a kinky, soft-core Perils of Pauline dropped into an espionage drama. It was reportedly Rollin’s biggest hit, no doubt due to the long sequences of strippers and hookers strutting their stuff in meaningless detours from the limp plot.’ — parallax-view
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______________ Lost in New York (1989) ‘Nostalgic and lugubrious. Hazy 16mm dream of the city as liminal domain, two spirits dislocated in space-time, desperately pursuing a reconnection. Snapshots of childhood, stories left hanging on the vine to ossify and grow obscure; a network of riant feelings stratified in memory, petrified synapses, whose egress has sealed over forever, like an abandoned warren, mossed over, lost and invisible to the present, concealed by an expressionless mask. Les Yeux sans visage. Running through the dark labyrinth of skyscrapers, following the ribbon of azure, faint river of light overhead; the cemetery at twilight, and the beach we always return to, bloodless water beneath a nubilous sky, rolling inexorably over ancient groynes, sea-bound sentinels, lapping at the shore of mortality, slowly carving tide-lines in ligneous, aging flesh. Reconciled at last, we prepare for a final journey.’— WraithApe
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____________ Killing Car (1993) ‘Jean Rollin’s KILLING CAR, stars Tiki Tsang as “The Car Woman”, one of the most enigmatic, eerily seductive characters in any film. She’s ruthless, relentless, and lethal. The opening junkyard scene, involving attempted car theft and murder, is both absurd and astonishing. This leads to the fast, desperate chase through a carnival, where she engages in a running gun battle with prostitutes. The car secured, she continues her murderous rampage. It’s obvious that anyone who comes in contact with this woman is doomed.’— Dethcharm
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___________________ Two Orphan Vampires (1997) ‘Returning to the Vampire genre after taking a twelve-year absence from it – Fascination 1979 being the last one – there certainly are many things that Rollin could have done here to make Two Orphan Vampires feel like a rehash of vampire clichés. But instead he avoids them and actually takes a complete different path. Normal vampire lore and the rules associated with it are discarded in favour of other strenghts and weaknesses. Where the girls are completely unaffected by the crucifix – they actually start off by living in that catholic orphanage surrounded by nuns, and hide out there when the real world proves to fearsome – they can also wander in the otherwise deadly ultraviolet rays cast down by the sun. But they do have one trait that keeps them somewhat restraint, they cannot see in the sunlight, which has them blind at day and in search of blood at night. Two Orphan Vampires is a meditative, tender and delicate piece of film which firmly finds it’s place amongst Rollin’s canon, and is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the older films of the great Jean Rollin.’ — CiNEZiLLA
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p.s. Hey. ** Dr. Kosten Koper, Hi! Very good to see you, sir. Yes, if Zac and I end up going to Walibi I’ll get word to you somehow. It would be swell to see you. Bon weekend. ** Dominik, Hi!!! If Carter does ever decide to make that film I’m going to have to insist we do a rewrite because it was long ago and I’m a whole lot better at script writing now to say the least. My ‘Bring Her Back’ review wil have to wait just a bit because today I have to watch or rather rewatch my assigned film (Pasolini’s ‘Teorama’) for my biweekly Zoom film/book club tomorrow. Love plucked a favorite sentence of mine there, of course, that mind reading dude. Love realising that the subject of vampires wasn’t as exhausted as I thought, G. ** jay, She’s really, really good. Not a bad dream you had there whatsoever. I don’t know enough about how AI works, but I am here wondering if AI would make it possible to visualise that dream of yours because I would absolutely watch it. I’m glad that a bruised brain lacks negative consequences. How did you know something was amiss enough with your head to get it checked up? When I was in high school I was known as the school’s arty writer/artist guy, and memory tells me that at the reunion most of the ex-schoolmates weren’t surprised that I went the route I did. If they had actually read my books, it surely would have been a different story. I don’t know ‘ANIMALIA’, but if Jamie recommended it, I’m certainly a fount of curiosity. Have a blast over the next two days somehow somewhere. xo, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Glad you liked it. I was going to say, ‘You’re still reading ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’?, but then I remembered its density and bulk and realised, ‘Duh, of course you are.’ ** Montse, Tillman is always a highly worthy read. Oh, gosh, any good word you feel like putting in with the Mostra’ maestro’s hubby would be awesome. Thank you, pal. I just wish the festival wasn’t a year from now. Enjoy your weekend, my buddy. ** Carsten, Tillman is a pip. There’s no cold like desert cold. And I say that as someone who slept one night in a tent on the surface of Antarctica. The nights when we were shooting outdoor scenes for our film until 5 am were borderline murder. I’ll look into those festivals you mentioned on this very day. Thanks. Fingers crossed. Weird that France, German’s next door neighbor, has what sounds like a polar opposite health care system. Europe is so strange. ** Steve, Great, then I’m happy for the upcoming visit. New single! Everyone, Steve has dropped a new double sided single provocatively titled ‘The Cage’/’How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?’ that you can hear and/or score at bandcamp aka here. I just ended up buying a few Robert Pollard things I didn’t have yesterday. People keep saying ‘The Naked Gun’ is really funny. I guess I’ll have to try it. In my mind, Liam Neeson is no Leslie Nielsen, but … ** Steeqhen, Why does Pride happen at so many different times? That’s a rhetorical question. Seems odd. Not that all Prides happening at once would make any difference. Granted I live in Paris, but €10 seems like chickenfeed. Have a swell weekend. ** HaRpEr //, That sounds really nerve-wracking. For me money worries are the scariest thing possible. I’ve never had a proper job, and I always survived by scrambling for journalism gigs or having to beg my parents for a loan that they knew I would never pay back, and it was almost constant stress, but I was able to do what I wanted to do with my writing, and I wouldn’t revise those years if I could. I don’t hate ‘Sally Can’t Dance’, but, at the time, it’s what followed up ‘Berlin’, and you can probably imagine what it was like to rush out to buy the new Lou Reed album on the heels of ‘Berlin’ and hear ‘SCD’ come out of the speakers. ** horatio, Hi. Well, keep in mind that just because the profiles are real doesn’t mean they’re non-fiction. I think most of them are just guys fantasising in public. Thanks for linking me to ‘Tastes like Pork’. Great! I’ll hit it this weekend. I was going to say tell Connie hi for me, but I see that just below your comment I can do that in person. And you have a splendiferous weekend. ** Hugo, When I’ve been in Brussels I’ve found the underlying battle between the French and Dutch speakers interesting. When we performed one of the Gisele Vienne pieces there years ago, we used Dutch subtitles, and there was an actual boycott of the shows by angry French speakers. Efteling is my favorite amusement park in the world. Will do if we end up going to Walibi. That’s still up in the air. Sorry about your friend’s cat. Most of the dogs my family had when I was growing up got hit and killed by cars. Ugh. Peace to you too. Nice. ** Connie, Hi, Connie. Nice to meet you. Oh, with the slave and escort profiles, I do switch around the names, locations, and photos, yes, as a way of protecting their identities. But the photos all come from those contexts, not elsewhere. The fact, or the presumed fact, is that quite a number of the guys use fake photos in their profiles, so, if the photos originated on Instagram, for instance, it’s one of the slaves or escorts who swiped them from there. Your vj work sounds interesting. Is that work viewable? Thanks for coming in here. ** julian, Um, probably. Sometimes it takes a while to realise it was wrong, right? To me, yes, they’re more objectively pleasant to look at. Asses are more charismatic than genitals, I think. They provide more space to dream. I’m a big Robert Wilson fan, and I didn’t know he did something with Gaga. But of course he did. ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, his work back in the 70s and 80s was absolutely mind blowing. So true about the posters’ superiority. True as well with the films <-> posters of the blog’s weekend star. ** Right. I’m asking you guys to spend your local time this weekend with the films of France’s oddball, vampire-inclined horror (and something other) director Mr. Jean Rollin. See you on Monday.
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