Page 184 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945
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edit that closes Bunuel/Dalf's Un Chien Andalou (1928). This is mirrored in the closing sequences of
both Le frisson des vampires and La vampire nue. The sea offers the sound of gulls and waves, which
sometimes invade areas apparently far removed from the sea. In Le frisson des vampires the soundtrack
often comprises animal noises that reflect the characters and indicate their association with primordial
or natural impulses. When Isa devours a dove these animalistic noises represent her return to primitive
desires, but visually the scene harks back to Magritte s La plaisir ( 1927). Her plaisir lies in her freedom
to return to the id but this is contradicted by her disgust at her bloodlust. This creates both a visual
and aural bond with the beach scenes - even far from the shore it still invades the cinematic space.
In Les démoniaques, when the mystery demon makes love to the young rape victims, thereby
imbuing them with his power, as the girls climax their excited sighs transmute into the cry of seagulls.
Visually striking, Lèvres de sang also adopts surrealist-inspired literal visual wordplay. At the films
opening, two corpses, enshrouded, are interned in a castle crypt. The bodies are clearly breathing.
Despite only seeing cloth we know straight away that these ate literally the living dead - les mortes
vivantes. This relation is further emphasised by the film's audacious close, which sees the naked couple
enter a coffin and drift away on the ocean waves. Again the sea and beach represent the journey
between life and death: the couple are both living and dead. These contradictions play in all of Rollins
films; the living dead and the blind that see. In Les deux orphelines vampires the titular characters are
blind during the day but can see in their natural nocturnal habitat. There are also blind characters in
Lèvres de sang and Le viol du vampire.
IMAGE, SOUND AND EXPERIMENTATION
The integration of sound and dialogue within Rollins work is notmally employed in a symbolic or
(apparently) non-diegetic way. In terms of exposition, he tends to use monologues to explain the
plot, but the effect is usually that of extending the mysteries within the narrative. The mystery lies
in the lack of explanation, and the meaning within the lack of meaning. In La vampire nue a lengthy
monologue explains the actions of animal-masked men intimidating a girl, but do these revelations
go any way to enhancing the viewer's previous experience of these events? Ultimately by the time
everything has been explained, its relevance has passed. We know we are watching a poetic film rather
than a conventional narrative. Rollins sleight of hand in these dialogue scenes occurs not so much
to explain earlier mysteries but to provide a bridge to later events. In Requiem pour un vampire the
explanation as to the last vampire's predicament may account for' what has happened to the girls
and why they are menaced by cultists, but its real purpose is to set up and justify the ending and its
meaning.
Like much of Rollins dialogue this is steeped in the pulp tradition - the arch nemesis reeling off
the full deviousness of his or her diabolical plans. In Requiem pour un vampire the dialogue revolves
around the sole true vampire. For the first half of the film there is virtually no dialogue of merit
(dialogue as incidental/diegetic sound) and later on most of the non-vampire dialogue is abrupt or
re-iterative ('Why won't you tell them?'). This again points to Rollins affinity with the visual medium
and early - silent - cinema. This is not to say that sound is irrelevant (any more than it would be to
say that sound is irrelevant in 'silent' cinema) but it plays a different role to that which the modern
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