Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

Requiem For a Vampire (1971) is pretty much representative of the vampire films of Jean Rollin.  It is also the only one that I've seen recently enough to feel confident talking about here.  Granted, the version I saw was the US edit entitled Caged Virgins, which runs a scant seventy minutes, or so, compared to the original French running time of ninety five minutes.  Nevertheless, even this severely truncated version gives a decent representation of what Rollin's films are about - less interested in the conventional horror aspects of their subject matter than they are in using the tropes of the genre to create dream-like erotic fables.  Rollin's films were always notable for their eccentric plot development - more often than not the result of him commencing filming without a completed script, instead simply seeing how the initial scenarios developed - something which the severe editing of this version of Requiem accentuates.  The film opens with two girls dressed as clowns in a car driven by a male associate, apparently being chased down country lanes, exchanging gunfire with their pursuers.  When the driver is shot and the car subsequently crashes, they set both alight and escape into the woods, divesting themselves of their costumes.  After hiding out in a graveyard, (during which one of them, Michelle, falls into an open grave and is nearly buried alive), they stumble across an apparently abandoned, but bat-infested, castle.  

After making love in a convenient bed, they encounter a mysterious organ playing woman who follows them around the castle and proves impervious to their bullets, before being attacked by a group of men intent on raping them.  A vampire woman mysterious woman intervenes to prevent this and the mysterious women they previously encountered tries to bite them, before they get away again.  It eventually transpires that they have stumbled into the castle of an ancient vampire, the last of his kind, who wants to vampirise the girls as part of an attempt to perpetuate his kind.  The catch is that they must be virgins.  Come daylight, the girl try to escape, but find that every route they take leads them back to the castle.  While Michelle becomes attracted to the idea of immortality and perpetual youth as a vampire, her friend, Marie, is less than enthusiastic.  While both of them are bitten by the vampire as the first part of his plan, Marie succeeds in losing her virginity to one of the grave diggers from the cemetery, who she lures to the castle.  Michelle, meanwhile, as agreed to lure another man to the castle, but to provide blood for her new friends rather than for sex.  These developments severely strain Michelle and Marie's relationship, culminating in Michelle whipping a chained and naked Marie in the dungeons.  Eventually, however, their love prevails and the vampire releases them and, accepting his fate seals himself into his tomb.  

Of course, this slim and meandering plot is of secondary importance to Rollin, who is clearly more interested in creating a dream like atmosphere and some striking imagery.  Indeed, the visual aspect of the film is clearly of primary importance to Rollin - no dialogue, for instance, is spoken for at least half an hour.  His characteristic static style is on display throughout the film, with long scenes in which nothing much seems to happen, yet still feel hugely significant.  The vampires themselves are hardly innovative, resembling sub-Hammer stereotypes, but, of course, they aren't the real focus of the film.  That lies with the two girls, Michelle and Marie, and with Rollin's exploration of the concept of innocence.  Most importantly, the way in which innocence is ordinarily interpreted in sexual terms, the popular idea that virginity equates to some kind of purity - the vampire seeks virgins as he assumes that their 'innocence' and lack of wordliness will make them more susceptible to the temptations of vampirism. Certainly, they won't be distracted from a lust for blood by the temptations of the flesh.  But with Michelle and Maria, he is mistaken in making such an equation: from the film's outset, we, the audience, can see that they certainly aren't 'innocent'.  Despite their innocent looks, (the actresses portraying them are suitably child-like enough to convey am impression of naivety and purity), they are clearly involved in violent crime and have no conventional sense of morality.

Moreover, he is equally mistaken in his belief that simply because they are sexually untouched by men, that they are not sexual creatures.  Ironically, this supernatural being, a representative of evil, is seemingly hidebound by conventional ideas of morality and sexuality.  Which is part of the film's other overarching theme, that of contrasts, be that the contrast between the two girls, (one is dark and brunette, the other fair and blonde) or between the static world of the vampire's castle and the modern, far more dynamic, modern world outside.  It quickly becomes clear that the world of the vampires is firmly rooted in the past - quite literally risen from a tomb - and cannot exist without the castle's boundaries, in the present day, with its different sexual mores and concepts of morality.  Their world is one of simple dualities: good and evil; light and dark; innocence and wickedness.  They simply can't comprehend the world in which Michelle and Marie have come from, which, ultimately, is their downfall.

Requiem for a Vampire is a beautiful film to look at but not, in any conventional sense, a horror film.  (Rollin was capable of making more conventional genre films, such as The Grapes of Death, but his vampire films are always more concerned with using the trappings of the horror film to explore ideas of eroticism and sexuality).  Certainly, its content proved problematic in 1971 for distributors and censors in both the US and UK, (even with the provision of some alternative versions of the scenes involving nudity, in which the actors involved keep their underwear on), hence the severe editing on the US version I saw.  In the UK, it was refused certification outright, (allegedly the whipping scene was just too much for the BBFC), finally appearing on video in 1993, with nearly seven minutes of cuts.  But even in the cut down version I saw, Requiem is, if you are in the right mood, a fascinating and enjoyable experience, entrancing the viewer with its dream like progression through a series of hallucinatory vignettes.