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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