Apart from bootlegs and a few edited English-dubbed American versions of his films, most of Rollin's films were initially released on home video in the U.S. during the previous decade by Redemption, a British company that first licensed their films to Image and then released them under their own American label. Now they've entered into a new partnership with Kino Lorber to release their entire library on Blu-ray as well as DVD in newly-remastered editions, beginning with five films from Jean Rollin.
The Nude Vampire (1970), Rollin's second feature and the earliest of his films in this first wave of releases, is a strange work of conspiracy, family rebellion, and innocence imprisoned, both a vampire film and a strange science fiction fantasy of shadowy old men performing secret experiments. Pierre (Olivier Martin, aka Olivier Rollin), our well-heeled hero, is drawn into the conspiracy when he's entranced by a young woman (Caroline Cartier) wandering the streets, naked under a sheer gown and shadowed by men in black tights and animal masks, a scene that looks like some kind of wild performance art. When he's barred from following her to a villa, where some kind of weird private party / cult ceremony is underway, he becomes obsessed with learning the secret of the villa and the woman. Both mysteries lead to his father (Maurice Lemaître), a kinky old industrialist with two ripe young servants in uniforms right out of Barbarella, and his cabal, who believe that this delirious young woman is a vampire and holds the secret of immortality.
It's Rollin's first color film and his debut collaboration with cinematographer Jean-Jacques Renon, who first creates that distinctive look of Rollin's nocturnal shoots here. He floods the performers and with plenty of illumination even in the dead of night, lighting the center of the frame while the light feathers out until it fades to midnight black at the edges. The world disappears outside of his frame and adds mystery to the action, as if the fall of night takes the story out of time and makes all things possible. Rollin's love of twins and matched pairs is also first seen here, as is his penchant for romantic heroes drawn to mysterious women and supernatural places. He dresses the entire affair up in formal evening clothes for the guests and skimpy costumes for the twin servants (one scene has them in skirts with fringe like banana peels, which the lascivious old man peels off one by one).
But we're really transported to Rollin's world when the cabal of old men move their experiments from their urban villa and anonymous office building headquarters to a mansion in the country owned by a mysterious aristocrat in a Dracula cape. Rollin has an eye for modestly magnificent locations that become ominous when deserted and lit with a practical minimalism at night and the mansion is one of his best. Inside, it is vast, grand, elegant, and austere, more haunted than lived in. Outside, vines and foliage embrace the building and the stone patios like an ancient ruin. It is both ancient and alive, and when a parade of night people (Alive? Dead? Undead?) converge on this seeped-in-time manse, marching through the fields and paths and across raised stone walkways with an eerie grace, they carry the film from the modern world to a supernatural out-of-time existence. Rollin presents them as neither evil nor benevolent, simply other, inexplicable, both of and out of this world. The mystery and allure of this other world becomes a siren call to his heroes.
There's a bizarrely mundane strangeness to The Nude Vampire, as there are to all his films, a matter-of-fact directness coupled with deadened, flat performances (especially in the case of Olivier Rollin, the director's half-brother), austere sets and locations, and an unadorned camera style. Rollins never worked with top-notch actors and often cast amateurs and, in later films, porn professionals. The performances are often stilted, sometimes dazed and distracted, and in the case of the vampire girl Cartier, blank and uncomprehending, as if hypnotized or sleepwalking. While that can be seen as amateurishness on his part, it also adds to the alienation and out-of-step atmosphere. They seem entranced by the possibilities of magic in his world.
The Nude Vampire sets the tone, style and sensibility for all his films to come: B-movie exploitations by an avant-garde eroticist, the filmmaking at once slapdash and intense, the imagery screwy and haunting, the narratives dreamy, inexplicable, and usually incoherent, yet also hypnotic and mesmerizing. Some of his filmmaking was crude (a result of budget or time, or simply his disinterest in getting a contractual sex scene out of the way so he could choreograph one of his set pieces) but at his best, he was the erotic poet of le cinema fantastique.
The Kino Lorber edition is remastered from the original 35mm negative for DVD and Blu-ray. The film has not been necessarily restored -- you can see speckling and imperfections in the image (possibly in the original camera negative) and minor damage in some places -- but it features bold, vivid color and a sharp image. It's likely as close as we'll come to what the film looked like in its initial theatrical showings, and certainly better than it's ever looked before on home video. It presents the film in its original French soundtrack with English subtitles and an optional English dub soundtrack.
Both the Blu-ray and DVD editions feature an introduction by Jean Rollin and a 19-minute interview with Rollin, both conducted by Daniel Gouyette, who videotaped conversations with Rollin when he worked as an assistant to the director between 1998 and 2003. Rollin discusses the origins of the film and details on the shooting. Also features a new interview with longtime Rollin collaborator Natalie Perry, who worked both behind the scenes and in front the camera for Rollin (in The Nude Vampire, she has a small role in the film's surreal finale). All interviews are conducted in English. Finally, there is a superb essay by film historian Tim Lucas in an accompanying 20-page illustrated booklet, which provides both an introduction to his work in general and notes on each of the five films in the first wave of releases.
For more information about The Nude Vampire, visit Kino Lorber. To order The Nude Vampire, go to TCM Shopping.
by Sean Axmaker
