Review: Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

(aka Requiem pour un Vampire, Caged Virgins)
Directed by: Jean Rollin
Starring: Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent, Philippe Gasté
Written by: Jean Rollin
Music by: Pierre Raph
Country: France
Available on: Blu-ray (Redemption Films/Kino Lorber)
IMDb

It was only a matter of time until I got to the heart of Jean Rollin’s passion: lesbian vampires. I’m not really a fan of the vampire subgenre, particularly the velvet-cloaked and poet-shirted variety. But I find myself a new, and pretty big, fan of Jean Rollin, so alas. Requiem for a Vampire is Rollin’s last foray into more traditional vampirism, though this — about two women on the run who end up trapped in a castle of vampires — is hardly traditional. For starters, three-quarters of the film has no dialog, nor are there vampires for half of it. Rollin et al. primarily improvised their way through production, working from one scene of a vampire playing piano in a graveyard, and that explains a lot of why this is what it is. The movie is mostly an experimental film-poem that casually explores the bonds of women and the dependencies between the genders. Of course, everything looks beautiful. As required by Jean Rollin aesthetic, there is sprawling, mist-enshrined countryside, a gothic and crumbling chateau, scenes bathed in vivid reds and blues, and beautiful women often naked. Though I have yet to wade heavily into Rollin’s filmography, Requiem is easily the most erotic so far, and there is a lot of skin and simulated sex on display. The sexual dynamics in this film are interesting because some female characters wield their bodies to display power while others are victimized by their sensuality. I’m not sure the contrast is intentional, but it’s noteworthy. It’s tough for me to discern if Rollin is leveraging homosexuality to explore it as a natural expression of love or solely wielding it as an apparatus to arousal, but I could see the argument for either because the lesbian relationships in his films don’t seem purely exploitative. The vast chasm in mores between Europe and America, in how each treats violence versus sex is somewhat rote, but a film like this, in which the nude body is such a casual currency, brings the discussion back to the fore. I mean, in the United States, you’d never get a two-minute-long, full-frontal scene of a woman receiving cunnilingus from a vampire bat. Wait. Not sure you’d get that anywhere but this movie. Anyway, the vampires here are mostly your standard fancy, romantic type, and the central male vamp in particular is not going to convince anyone of his dark majesty. But that’s also kind of the point: he’s over the whole thing and is refreshingly pragmatic about it. After all, this is his requiem (it’s right there in the title). Requiem for a Vampire is an interesting, alluring watch, but I wish it had a few more things on its mind.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10