Fascination

Fascinating
Rhythm

Fascination
France 1979
Directed by Jean Rollin
Redemption Blu Ray Zone A

Warning: Light spoilers.

I think Fascination, in a slightly edited print on television, was probably the first of Jean Rollin’s marvelous surreal vampire tales that I saw... followed in quick succession by a few of his other exquisite gems. I say vampires but the five girls who are the main ‘menace’ (shall we say) of the film are not pure vampires in the most commonly perceived, supernatural definition of the word but, they certainly fit other definitions of the term, which I shall come to in a little while.

Also, yes, there are five of them but, for the majority of the film, only two are present and are the main protagonist's way into the story. These two are chambermaids Elisabeth, played by future novelist Franca Maï... and Eva, played by Brigitte Lahaie, the French porn star who acted in a fair few of Rollin’s films and who acquits herself much more gracefully and naturalistically as an actress than many of her co-stars in a fair few of these productions, it seems to me. She’s quite often the best thing in a Rollin film in terms of acting ability but Fascination seems to me to be one of the films where the actors being used by Rollin are all much better than the usual suspects prior to this.

The film starts off strongly, with a slow pan down from an oil painting onto a locked book on a table. A pair of hands opens the book and starts leafing through and caressing the pages. It’s a shot which doesn’t have anything else to do with the rest of the film, from what I can make out but, it looks great. This is then followed by a wonderful title sequence of Elisabeth and Eva dancing on a very long, causeway-like, low bridge to a gramophone record... one of those old players with the big trumpet speaker. This is followed by an interlude where three of the ‘vampires’ visit a local slaughter house to drink animal blood from wine glasses, to help improve their ‘anemia’.

Then, the main story catches up as thief Marc, played by Jean-Marie Lemaire, escapes four other criminals he is conning with a small chest containing gold coins. He crosses the causeway I mentioned earlier and enters the big house, surrounded by a river (yeah, it’s more like a less traditional looking castle with a moat, in fact) and starts what is almost a small ‘home invasion’ with the two chambermaids. Sexual shenanigans ensue as Eva especially wants to keep him on the grounds until midnight, when their ‘friends’ will arrive for their special club meeting. To that end, she even gets rid of the other robbers for him... offering her body to them and then, in an iconic moment in French cinema (as far as I’m concerned), wielding a grim reaper’s scythe and slaughtering them all.

Of course, when the rest of the gals arrive and entertain the ‘guest’ until the proper time, Marc, who is not a sympathetic character and arrogant enough to think himself safe around five flimsy women, finds out that these ‘anemics’ have developed a thirst for human blood and they kill and eat the blood of a ‘guest’ at midnight when they meet up. More shenanigans ensue, which I won’t bother to detail here.

This is an absolutely stunning work from Rollin, it has to be said (I’m surprised Encore didn’t release this one as one of their fantastic Rollin boxed DVD editions when they were doing them). The film is more bound to interiors than most of them for about two thirds of the combined running time but, with a house as large as this, the director is still able to include the odd shot of small figures amongst architectural details (such as shots down long corridors) and his signature is all over this. Beautiful colours, naked and half naked women, a minimal plot and absolutely brilliant framing are the order of the day here.

Philippe D'Aram’s score is pretty good for this one too, using a very distinctive sound which makes good use of, I think, a musical saw for some of the themes (such as the record the girls are dancing to in the opening credits). Out of all of the Rollin film scores, I think this is the one which has had the most commercial releases on CD... such releases are a bit sparse when it comes to Rollin’s films and often they include the French dialogue where the elements have not been kept separate from the music tracks.

Every time I see Lips Of Blood (reviewed here) I think that it’s my favourite of his films but, every time I see Fascination, I think the same of this one. Certainly, this most recent Koch/Redemption Blu Ray release of the film looks absolutely stunning (it’s often had cheap and washed out looking prints in the past) and is certainly worth the money (I believe Indicator have their own version coming out very soon which may well be a good one to own too). If you’re not familiar with Rollin’s work then Fascination is a good place to start because the acting isn’t completely terrible, the dialogue is actually above average and it’s filled with all the usual, sumptuous imagery you’d expect form the director. Always a pleasure whenever I revisit this one and certainly one I’d recommend to most cineastes.