Page 182 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

vampire cousins. Rollin achieves this by simply having the vampires disappear on the beach, in one
shot, without the pretence of fading or other more overt cinematic trickery. This is an audacious move
akin to earlier works by Cocteau and is successful precisely because it is so jarring and obvious - it has
not dated because it was a trick that was already seventy years out of date in the first place!
FATAL FEMALES: ROLLINS DEPICTIONS OF GENDER

I've seen how pure-hearted they are. H o w innocent they are.
- Les démoniaques

In her book Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema, Andrea Weiss dismisses Rollins work:

Rollins iconography features leather and metal chains, spikes protruding from women's
breasts, scenes of gang rape, and vampires reduced to drinking from their own veins.4

This assertion denies the variety and richness of Rollins female characters and reduces his work to
cheap exploitation or pornography, which is just not the case. His female characters are unashamed of
their sexuality even if, like Rollins male characters, they are identifiable by their role. The dominatrix
features heavily in Rollins narratives - the Vampire Errant, Isolde, in Le frisson des vampires, the
vampire Queen in Le violdu vampire and Helene from Fascination.
More distinctive, though, is Rollins use of non-identical (and occasionally identical) rwins. They
are innocents, in the sense that they are creatures of nature and not nurture, to be violated by a cruel
world. They are amoral Alices, wandering through Wonderland, oblivious of the consequences of their
actions - they derive power but also, paradoxically, vulnerability. They are sexually alluring precisely
because of their flirtatious innocence - Eva and Elisabeth from Fascination, Marie and Michèle from
Requiem pour un Vampire, the servant girls from any number of films. Such characters are frequently
depicted lying like tame panthers at their masters' feet or clad in alluring but impractical dresses of
Perspex disks on metal hoops, or wandering through a chateau carrying candelabras. These depictions
shows a sense of symmetry that would not be out of place in a Peter Greenaway film or L'année
dernière à Marienbad (1961).
Rollin cites artist Clovis Trouille as an influence and nowhere is this more apparent than in
his portrayal of the two girls.5 Trouilles paintings have a similar erotic charm in his depictions of
embracing women entwined. Much of Trouilles use of colour is also reflected in the costumes these
twins wear. An example of Rollins same-but-different fixation occurs in Requiem pour un vampire
when one of the two girls seeks vampirism and the other (by deliberately losing her virginity) cannot.
Marie and Michèle are aware of their power over men but view sexual flirtation as gameplay and not
inherently dangerous. They are mischievous but not malicious in their seductions — indeed they both
begin the film as virgins with Sapphic tendencies. Rollins penchant for twins reaches its zenith in Les
deux orphelines vampires (1997); even the title is a dead giveaway. In keeping with the twins' assertion
that they can only see blue (and only at night), the colour palette reflects this for much of the time,
creating a sense of frisson to the film and diminishing some of the emotional attachment. The two girls

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